Megaman X7 Parody
by LazerTH
Summary: The latest installment in the Madness Attacking The Head Slowly parody saga that covers the shenanigans of X, Zero and the new kid Axl.
1. The New Kid

Megaman X7: The Parody

By LazerTH

For Hannah

Author's note:

I finally got my hands on Megaman X7. The rest is history.

888

Zero finished his twentieth cigarette for the night. He hated cold, damp nights, especially those spent in places he would rather forget. Coughing, he dropped the butt onto the oily black asphalt, grinding it beneath his heel as was human custom. He jumped onto the wreckage, one of many vehicle graveyards blocking the broken freeway that wound through the littered centre of Neo Tokyo like a black mamba.

"I can't believe I'm back here again," he grated in the low rasping voice emerging from his shredded throat. Spitting black tar onto the crumpled hood of a truck, he unsheathed his Z-Saber, touching the end of his twenty-first cig to the blade whose edge was half the temperature of the sun. He inhaled, and could feel the tar coating his voice generation system. Coughing, he hit a puddle running, his Z-Saber the only light along the lonely road.

But he was not alone. There were the mechaniloids.

From the old age of the twenty first century into the dawn of the twenty second, his sword had cut a swath through the mechaniloid infestation of this planet, Earth.

But it was never enough. Like roaches, they refused to die out, hiding in the gutters of the planet, rebuilding their dead and constructing ever more from the junk left behind by the Maverick Wars. Zero had survived all six thus far, sometimes winning them single-handedly, and so he was the highest-ranked Maverick Hunter to walk the Earth.

He never knew rest. He never knew peace; only battle, and that was his purpose upon this ravaged planet that begged for healing.

"Roller droids."

The small round metallic spheres unfurled slender legs and pranced towards him in slow, measured steps. To satisfy their curiosity, he cut them apart with nary a pause in his stride. In response to the hostile encounter, bigger ones rolled along the highway to greet him, each boasting a small plasma blaster that could blow a human apart with one shot. With practiced ease, he hit the shots right back at them, destroying them all.

Now that they knew a Hunter was among them, the mechaniloids in this area sent their most powerful weapon against him: the Bee Copters; so named for their telltale bumblebee colours and design. Grunting with annoyance, Zero ran to meet them. They were outdated, recycled relics from the first Maverick War, but at the time they seemed like a good idea. They had a nifty spotlight, machine gun and huge rotor blades to keep them aloft. The first Bee Copter captured him in the spotlight and fired, but Zero had done this before. Moreover, his optic sensors could detect the individual movements of the rotor blades and just how fast they were moving.

He was faster. Leaping above the whirring blades, he swung downward. The rotor blades sliced into his sword and melted just as fast, spinning off into the night while the Bee Copter crashed. The next copter fired its guns before locking onto him properly, so he dashed under the hail of bullets, holding up his Z-Saber while he ran, letting it burn through the soft underbelly of the mechaniloid. The oil running through its moving parts caught fire, and the whole thing exploded while Zero continued running.

"Oh, what a night. Late December back in 2063…"

Jumping over the missing sections of the freeway while dispatching more Roller droids, he threw his Z-Saber at the last Bee Copter hovering in his way. The glowing green blade knifed through the body of the mechaniloid, zipping cleanly out the other side. Zero dash-boosted under the thing as it died, catching his sword on the other side.

"Out of the way!! Out of the way!!" he heard a kid's voice yelling behind him. Zero whirled around to meet some spiky-haired punk with bright, sky-blue orbs decorating his dark blue chest and helmet. For one so deceptively young, he had an ugly X-shaped scar over the bridge of his nose, and was running like hell.

"Who're you, kid?" Zero demanded, keeping pace with the fleeing reploid.

"Are you stupid? You'll get killed if you wait around here!" the punk berated him, making Zero even madder. The Hunter reached out to grab an arm, yanking the punk off his feet and slamming him into the road.

"I want to know what you're running from."

The punk pointed a finger behind Zero, and there was a massive Scorpion mechaniloid looming over them.

"I want a full explanation when this is over!" Zero growled, dropping the punk to grip his saber with both hands. The punk scuttled away while the Scorpion chased Zero along the freeway, firing huge plasma bursts from its hooked tail that Zero deflected back at it, eventually destroying the stinger. This made the Scorpion mad, and it stampeded towards Zero, breaking apart abandoned trucks and cars with blind fury.

"Never hunt a Hunter!" Zero shouted, meeting the mechaniloid with saber extended, driving it into the armoured head. He dashed away as the Scorpion detonated, caught up with the punk, and slapped huge heavy handcuffs on him specially designed for reploids.

"Where did you keep these things?" the punk protested, trying to pull free. Zero clapped a hand on his shoulder, sheathing his Z-Saber, and put out his cigarette stub on the punk's spiky head.

"OW! What'd you do that for!?"

"Alia keeps disintegrating my cigarettes when I teleport, and to answer your first question, I hide them in my ample, golden ponytail. Let's get your troublemaking ass back to HQ."

888

Within the ultramodern facility of Maverick Hunter HQ the commander, Signas, greeted Zero.

"Who's this punk?"

Popping a fresh cig from the pack, Zero shoved the punk forward.

"Speak, urchin."

Glowering at the tall, broad commander, he obeyed.

"My name's Axl. I ran away from Red Alert."

Signas raised a metallic eyebrow. Zero stood beside Signas, blowing smoke into Axl's face.

"That explains why a high-class mechaniloid was chasing you in the middle of nowhere. Why are you important to them, Axl? Your winning smile? Your roguish good looks?"

Axl glared at Zero.

"I've had enough of you! I want to speak to Commander X!"

Feeling hurt, Signas walked away mumbling, "Nobody cares about me anymore." Meanwhile, Zero raised X on the comm. device built into his head.

"Our new orphan from Red Alert wants to speak to the big pussy."

"_I am NOT a pussy! Bring him to my office!"_

"Follow me, kid, and for the love of Marlboro Man, don't say the word 'Maverick'."

"Why shouldn't I…"

Zero put out the cig on his spiky head.

"OW! Okay! Okay!"

Zero nudged him down the corridor, giving a rattling phlegm-filled sigh as he raided his pack for more.

"I waste more good smokes that way."


	2. Desk Job

They stood in front his desk, staring at him for a good two minutes, waiting for him to look up from his computer.

"X?" Zero said. No response. He tried again.

"X? Could you stop playing World of Warcraft long enough to notice our existence?"

Nothing but the clacking of the keyboard and the clicking of the mouse. Zero took a deep breath and yelled, "MAVERICKS!"

The result was phenomenal. X back flipped out of his comfy chair into a marksman's crouch, his arm cannon already charging.

"Mavericks?! Where?!"

Axl snorted a laugh. X twitched.

"Must… destroy… all… Mavericks…"

"Okay, X, there are no Mavericks here."

X powered down and stood up. He grimaced at the computer screen.

"You made my paladin die!"

"He deserved it. Here, the punk wanted to talk to you."

Axl pidgeon-toed forward, head bowed low, muttering.

"What? Speak up," X snapped, resuming his chair to commence a corpse-run.

"I want to be a Hunter," Axl mumbled. Zero sniggered so hard that nicotine dribbled from his nose. Axl grit his teeth, lifted his head and shouted at X, "I can do it! I really can! Just give me a chance!"

X waved the hand not attached to his mouse.

"Look, kid, I don't approve of your methods. Alia said you used violence to solve your problems."

Zero rolled his eyes, puffing smoke rings. Axl sputtered, "I was being chased by MAVERICKS!"

X twitched violently, falling off his chair, coming up with his arm cannon aimed at Axl.

"Kill… all… Mavericks!"

While Axl stumbled backward and fell over in alarm, Zero slapped X out of it.

"There are no Mavericks here. Technically, kid, you were being chased by mechaniloids."

Axl flailed on the floor.

"I can't get up! Take these handcuffs off me, they're too heavy!"

"Tough."

X rubbed his cheek, trying to regain sensation in the left side of his brain.

"Aw! My paladin died again! Stupid corpse-campers!"

"God _dammit _X, would you turn that game off already?"

Sulking, X logged off and dropped into his chair, chin on hand, elbow on knee.

"Why do you want to be a Hunter, Axl?"

"Wow, somebody _remembered _I had a name."

"Zero, take those things off already."

Zero kicked the handcuffs, and they fell off. Axl found his feet.

"Wait, I could have just pulled them off all this time?"

"The only locks exist within your mind, there is no spoon, yadda yadda, may the Force be with you," Zero rasped, looking out the window.

Axl rubbed his wrists.

"Red Alert _changed. _We used to fight just Ma… just the bad guys, but now Red and his gang are killing innocent reploids, too!"

"You knew Red?" X queried.

"Sure. I went on lots of missions with him."

"Alone?" X arched an eyebrow. Zero fished an action figure out of his hair.

"Show us on the doll where Red touched you."

Axl smacked the figurine away.

"Not like _that! _He said I was special!"

X leaned forward in empathy.

"People like him all say you're special, Axl, but they just want to use you."

X and Zero shared a chortle at his expense. Axl rolled his eyes and looked away from them.

"I thought the Hunters were cool. Guess I was wrong."

"Nah, kid, we're cool," Zero said with a choking cough, waving smoke from his face, "It's just that one of us decided to be a pussy."

"I am NOT a pussy!" X shouted at him, clenching fists.

"Aww, did I hurt kitty's feelings? Does kitten need a hug?" Zero spread his arms. X folded his arms, pouting.

"Kitty is not amused."

Zero sat on the window sill, gesturing with his cancer stick.

"Thing is, kid, your Red Alert formed _just because X stopped fighting. _When X put down his Buster and took up his desk job the Mav… the mechaniloids and their leaders went out of control. Red Alert's trying to fill X's giant blue boots, but they're making a mess of things, and the stress is just too much for me alone."

Zero dragged on the cig for emphasis. X looked askance at his counterpart.

"It is physically impossible for nicotine to 'take the edge off' robots, you know."

"You want to know the real reason? I do it so I look like I'm busy, and people leave me alone. It sure scared off all the humans."

"That's because you smell like an ashtray to them."

Zero flicked a strand of blonde hair.

"Whatever works? I blame everything on you."

"Don't you start on that again…"

"What?" Zero jumped off the window sill, spreading his hands, chin stuck out at X, "You think sitting on your ass made _peace? _The world is falling apart thanks to Red Alert, and they're only fighting because YOU'RE NOT!"

"Stop it! Stop fighting!" Axl yelled, "I swear, you two sound like you're married!"

Zero looked out of the window, puffing testily while X hugged himself, looking at the floor. Axl shook his head. X's desk beeped.

"_Hey guys," _a female voice announced, _"The leader of Red Alert just hailed us, so you want to come down here. By the way, X, what happened to your paladin? We were running a good Warsong Gulch before he died. Twice."_

"I _know, _Alia. Alliance never wins, anyway. Let's go meet your abusive father, kid."

"He's not my daddy!"

Zero showed him another doll. Axl threw up his hands in defeat and followed them to the command centre.

888

X and Axl ran through the swishing doors, the kind they have on Star Trek because in the future, people are too lazy to use doorknobs. Red frowned at them from the main screen, a sweet 100 inch plasma panel that Alia stole from Gate's laboratory during the last war.

"_Axl? I thought I told you to stay in your room?" _the Red Alert leader rumbled. Axl scuffed his toes, looking away from the stern face. X waggled a fist at Red.

"What do you want with him?"

"_His safe return. We at Red Alert want his DNA-copying technology."_

Everyone in the command centre stared at Axl, who shrugged his shoulders.

"What? I was _going _to tell everyone… sooner or later."

X shook his head.

"That's impossible. Only Zero and I have that kind of power, and we're original models! Axl looks like he was born yesterday!"

"Hey! I was not!" Axl protested.

"Then get a voice upgrade, kid, or none of the ladies will take you seriously," Zero rasped as he sauntered into command, puffing merrily. The humans in the room turned up their noses and left.

"_Actually, Hunters, Axl's ability is far _more_ advanced than yours. He can literally _clone _reploid DNA, changing his entire body structure to match their appearance and abilities!"_

This prompted an even harder stare at Axl from everyone present. Axl sighed.

"It's only temporary! Also, it's not like I can change at will; I have to get fresh DNA every time!"

"The kid's a vampire!" Zero laughed, but laughter was too much of a strain on his voice generator, and he fell into a fit of coughing. X thumped Zero's back while waggling his other fist at Red.

"It's not right to exploit the power of reploids! The humans did it, and now there are barely a billion of them left!"

"_Not _right? _X, how many reploid DNA have you copied throughout the six wars?"_

"Forty… eight? But I deleted them after every war! Promise!"

"_Silly blue man. You could be a god by now, but you chose the path of peace. Axl was our trump, but you have stolen him from us!"_

"I came here of my own free will, because you guys are jerks!" Axl shouted.

"_Enough! Since you can't be a good boy and do as you're told, my generals and I officially declare _war _on the Maverick Hunters."_

"Mav-Mavericks," X's eye twitched. Zero slapped him on the other cheek, and wheezed, "Let me guess… there are eight generals?"

Red blinked.

"_Why, yes. Have you been spying on us?"_

"Past experience," Zero shrugged, and popped another cig.

"Red, don't do this! The Hunters are only trying to rebuild the planet! War won't prove you're stronger!"

"_Ah, but war _does _prove who survives. We will replace the Hunters!"_

"You can barely replace X," Zero grumbled, dragging long and hard. The command centre doors swished open, and a short blonde Caucasian human female in her twenties walked in.

"I brought donuts! Who wants…"

She hit the smoke wall emanating from Zero.

"_UGH! _ZERO! WHAT DID I _TELL_ YOU?"

"Cripes!" Zero cried, spitting the cig and trying to make a run for it. The girl dropped the donut box, unhooked the fire hose from the wall and blasted the blonde buffoon into the plasma screen, knocking both out of commission.

"I go out for _five minutes _to buy donuts and this _walking chimney _stinks up the whole place! Now I have to get more Clorox!"

Muttering under her breath, the girl stomped outside.

"Who the _hell _is that?" Axl said, picking his jaw off the ground.

"That's Hannah, my secretary," X said, munching a chocolate donut.

888

After toweling off, Zero joined Axl beneath the new plasma screen.

"Okay, boys, these are Red Alert's generals," Alia announced, displaying the ubiquitous eight bosses they had to fight every single war thus far.

"Hey, where'd you get that new TV from?" Zero asked her, trying but failing to light a cig with his wet hands.

"I stole lots of things from Gate's lab. He had a fetish for big screens, especially when he was talking to people."

"Compensation?" Axl wondered. Alia coughed and said nothing. Zero stared at the eight bosses for a few moments, and then yelled, "HANNAH!"

The speaker on Alia's comm. console brought over the aggravated voice of X's secretary.

"_WHAT? I'M BUSY!"_

"What's the boss order?" Zero demanded.

"_You lazy son of a smokestack, check the Internet!"_

"Alia?" Zero prompted. The comm. operative sighed and alt-tabbed the boss window to show GameFAQ's website.

"There's a poll asking whether you'd buy Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix if they lowered the price."

"God, yes. Sora's my hero," Axl said.

"That explains the hair," Zero quipped.

"Don't diss the doo," Axl growled.

"Anyway," Alia sighed, clicking through the links, "It says go after Ride Boarski first. The Ride Chaser's in the garage."

"Wait. Wait a minute!" Axl put up his hand, "Military intelligence already knows Red Alert's weakness? Your spies are fantastic!"

"Military intelligence is an oxymoron, kid," Zero coughed, "But, since the first war, this company called Capcom released a videogame of each Maverick War before it happened! They're like the people who take advantage of the World War 2 franchise, except they're _preemptive."_

"Then shouldn't we be fighting them? They sound like the ones causing the wars in the first place!" Axl protested.

"Nah, or else I wouldn't get my lifetime supply of Clairol," Zero shrugged, flicking a lock of his perfect hair, and walked for the exit. Axl scratched his head, shrugged also, and yelled, "I call shotgun!" while running from the room.

"Hey! You don't have a license!" Zero warned, chasing after him.

"_Alia, why are you still a comm. operative?" _Hannah asked from the console. Alia rubbed her hands together.

"If I stay in this soul-destroying job during the next war, I get to kill things!"

"_Oh, that's n… HEY! Stop breaking the fourth wall!"_

"Too late. Let's watch Idiot 1 and Idiot 2 crash into things."


	3. Ride

Axl was seated behind Zero on the Ride Chaser. Feeling the cool oiled metal hull, touching the real leather seats, Axl pointed at the right handlebar.

"What's that red button for?"

Zero swatted his hand away.

"Never, _ever, _push the red button."

After a solid glare at Axl, Zero ticked off the clipboard in his hand.

"Helmet?"

"I can't take my helmet off, and neither can you!" Axl groused.

"Sure I can. It's just that the world would burst into flame at the sight of my full sexiness revealed."

"How philanthropic of you," Axl muttered. Zero ticked off another item.

"Have you removed all metal items from your body?"

"I'm a REPLOID! And we aren't doing a CAT scan, so let's go!" Axl whined, rocking back and forth in his seat. Zero ticked off another item.

"Are you allergic to shellfish?"

Axl covered his eyes with one hand.

"You're just making things up now, aren't you?"

"Maybe," Zero said, tossed the list away, and revved the Ride Chaser so hard that the floor melted under its exhaust. Axl jumped and clung to Zero's waist for dear sweet life as the Ride Chaser blasted out of the garage at subsonic speeds, tearing concrete and asphalt apart as it screamed through Hunter HQ, shattering windows and overturning vehicles. While the bike went _SCREE! _Axl went _"AAAAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!"_

Zero banked a corner: the Ride Chaser literally kicked off the side of a building in order to change direction, heading out of Hunter HQ, trailing grass, trees and small animals in its wake. Axl's wild and terrified eyes swiveled about him, and although his optic sensors had a shutter speed of 1/8000 second he could not get a bearing in the blur the world had become.

"HOW SOON TIL WE GET THERE?" Axl shouted.

"WHAT?" Zero yelled back.  
"I _SAID, _HOW S-"

The Ride Chaser stopped at the entrance of the Central Circuit. This is not to say, it came to a gradual halt. Its forward thrusters activated with an explosive blast, tearing up the road as they brought the vehicle to a dead halt within five metres of igniting. Axl lost his grip during this time, so Zero watched him fly four or five hundred feet ahead.

"Good thing he has a helmet," Zero said, lighting a cig and nudging the Ride Chaser into a leisurely hover after the road kill formerly known as Axl. Reaching down, Zero grabbed a leg and tugged the rest of him out of the asphalt.

"You okay kid?" Zero asked in a noncommittal manner, dragging a smoke and looking at the road ahead. Axl spat rubble from between his teeth.

"That was TOTALLY uncalled for!" he yelled in Zero's face, "You KNEW I would fall off, didn't you?"

"Kwitcherbitchin' and get back on the ride," Zero frowned at him, causing the Ride Chaser to roar at the flick of his wrist. Grumbling – and without an alternative – Axl complied, but opted for the sidebars instead of the irksome smoker's waist. Zero prodded the bike into a bare five kilometers an hour.

"Why are we moving at the speed of smell?" Axl enquired. Zero pointed with his cig.

"See those immobile morons blocking the road, waving at us? We have to rescue sixteen of them in every area, so I don't think ramming them at the speed of sound will help."

"Why sixteen?"

"Mavericks have a fetish with the number 8, it seems."

They bumped into the first reploid and it teleported away. Axl blinked.

"Wait… why are they _waiting _for us to touch them? Can't they teleport on their own power?"

"No, you see, kid, we use this teleporter beacon," Zero held up a microchip the size of a Tic Tac, "To prevent enemy troops from just dropping in, the signal is badly scrambled in all war zones. For rescue purposes we just slap one of these homing beacons on a reploid and the HQ transporter room picks them up."

"Speak more slowly, and with smaller words," Axl grumbled, impatient with their slow progress.

"It's MAGIC!" Zero said, bumping into another hapless reploid with his magic touch. Axl noticed beeping red boxes on the ground.

"Hey Zero, what're those?"

"Bombs."

"Bombs. BOMBS?" Axl said, jumping to stand on the bike seat with one leg hiked up in alarm.

"Sixteen of 'em. Boarski's trying to destroy the highway leading to his lair."

"Why wasn't I told of this?" Axl squeaked, hopping from one leg to the other. Zero flicked a lock of his flowing golden mane.

"Alia is currently bitching in my ear about our imminent doom."

"You're very bloody calm about all this!"

"Stop getting footprints on the leather!"

Axl sat down, staring at the back of Zero's head.

"As we are not currently buried under a pile of burning rubble, I assume there's a timer?"

"Alia?" Zero asked. Her voice came over loudspeaker, "_About two minutes to go! HURRY UP!"_

Zero flicked off the hysterical operative. Axl shook his head.

"And you don't care?"

"Not a whit. I have to rescue these impotent imbeciles first, and_ then _I can worry about our explosive death."

Folding his arms and resigning himself to his fate, Axl went along for the ride. Zero navigated the course with barely a blonde tress disturbed by the wind, bumping into reploids to magically rescue them.

"There's a gap ahead," Axl warned him. Zero plodded the bike onward.

"Look, there's a ramp and everything. And a met-all with a warning cone on its head, for some reason."

The bike drowsed.

"ZERO!"

"Huh? What? Sorry, was thinking about how miserable life is with a backseat driver."

Zero revved the engine and they went careening over the ramp onto the next section of highway. But Zero hit the brakes immediately, nudging the bike into two reploids spaced wide apart.

"You'd think they would all gather together in a group," Axl griped, counting with his own timer. At twenty seconds to go, he said, "Well, we rescued everyone, but we might as well scrap the mission and teleport back to base. We barely collected ten bombs out of the sixteen!"

"Can't. Teleporter's jammed in war zones, remember? We can only teleport once the boss is dead, because Mavericks keep the jamming device in their leaders."

"Then what the _HELL_ are we going to do?" Axl cried. Zero pointed at his right handlebar.

"See the red button?"

"Yeah?"

"Push the red button."

Axl did so. Zero hunched forward, gripping the handlebars.

"Hang onto your fusion core, kid."

"Why?"

A shimmering blue haze surrounded the Ride Chaser.

"What's that?" asked the rookie.

"Forcefield. It prevents the vehicle from burning under atmospheric friction."

"_Burning? _That only happens to…"

A high-pitched whine emanated from the engines behind him. Axl stared wide-eyed as the Ride Chaser's hull split open and a pair of wing blades folded out on either side. Zero, puffing steadily away, cracked a grin at Axl in the rearview mirror.

"This is the twenty-second century, kid. Our bikes are _multi-purpose."_

Axl's hands locked around the sidebars as he experienced a thunder and acceleration that F-16 pilots of the twenty-first century endured, except they had been in mid-flight among clouds, not twelve inches off the hard, hard ground as he was now. The Ride Chaser sped along the highway trailing fire. Four seconds left.

"Six hundred kilometers per hour," Zero announced. He nosed the Ride Chaser into one bomb after the other with only the precision a machine can perform. Two seconds left.

"Eight hundred kilometers per hour."

Axl had happy thoughts about walking.

"One thousand. Brace yourself."

With a second remaining, Axl was not prepared. There was a moment of pure, pristine silence as they surpassed the sound barrier and the air itself gave way, and then the earth-shattering sonic boom. His audio sensors went offline. The servos in his arms overloaded. Axl clung onto the bike by sheer force of will. Zero picked up the last bomb with fractions of a second to spare, and the Ride Chaser took flight, leaving the highway far below in a shockingly small space of time. Floating through the clouds, the wind lashing Zero's hair into his face, Axl asked, "Do you do this for _every _war?"

Zero snorted, flicking away the dead ash of his cig.

"Heck, I do this on weekends just to piss X off and make him cry."

Axl's grin was the exuberance of youth itself.

"I want to be a Hunter when I grow up."

They passed the biker gang's layer below where Boarski was waiting.

"Hey, aren't we supposed to kill the boss?" Axl pointed. Zero grunted.

"You're right. Let's…"

Zero's helmet beeped.

"_Hey, Zero, good news. Boarski's weapon is useless."_

"Hmm? Hannah?" Zero frowned.

"_Yeah, I took a poll in the GameFAQ forum, and everyone agrees your lightsaber does much, much more damage against bosses weak to the stupid wheel thing Boarski gives you."_

"Oh. Thanks, Hanny."

Zero turned the bike around and headed back to Boarski's lair, but dropped into a nosedive.

"Zero? Are you trying to make us crash?" Axl gulped, pushing his fusion core back down his throat.

"Remember those bombs we picked up earlier?" Zero had a curious smile on his face. The Ride Chaser leveled out, and a compartment underneath it between the twin antigravity pads released the payload.

Three hundred feet below, Ride Boarski was running in circles around his cage arena.

"THOSE PUNKS! Why aren't they confronting me head-on? Ooooh! They make me so MAD!"

"Sir?" a grenade-throwing mechaniloid interrupted him, "Remember those bombs you made us plant along the highway?"

"Yeah?"

The mechaniloid pointed upward. Boarski looked up, and began yelling "YOU PUNK!" about twenty times in a row before the fiery explosive death meant for the Hunters greeted him in the face. Seeing as his weakness _was _the Circle Blaze (according to GameFAQ's, of course) this bomb payload atomized him.

"Carpet bombing. Crude, but effective," Axl commented.

"Whatever; his weapon was useless. Let's go home, kid," Zero said, dropping the butt of his cig into the flaming ruins below, guiding the Ride Chaser home.

888

Leaving Axl in the garage to scrub and polish the Ride Chaser, Zero managed to suck three cigs dry before he arrived at X's office and had to enter the No Smoking Zone that was Hannah. The latter wrinkled her nose at his smoky self.

"Ever heard of showering, Zero? It does wonders."

"What kind of wonders?" he yawned.

"The kinds that don't end up with you plastered to the wall by a fire hose."

Wincing, Zero asked, "Is X here?"

"No; he had to go outside to clean his litterbox."

"Not again? I thought the last war broke him out of that bad habit."

"_Will you two stop insulting me?" _X hissed from Hannah's desk console, _"Send the Hindenburg in, Hanny."_

"Right away. You heard the kitty; scat!"

The door swooshed opened to X's Spartan office. He had nothing in there but a desk, console and chair.

"Did I ever tell you how much your office makes my titanium crawl every time I walk inside?" Zero muttered, "It's like I'm visiting Lifesaver, and he has a Maverick shot waiting."

"You'll get worse than a Needle Saber in your backside if you pull a stunt like that again!" X glared at him. Zero held up his hands against the outburst.

"I completed the mission and saved _every _reploid, didn't I?"

"You destroyed _two kilometers _of highway!"

"The highway was inaccessible in the first place!" Zero sputtered in defense.

"I don't want to hear your excuses!" X yelled, slamming his palms on the table, causing the smooth metal desk to dent, "Use more discretion next time! The entire human population is watching!"

"You wouldn't be saying these things if you were DOING something!" Zero sneered as he walked out. He wished he could slam the door, but the blasted devices had been hijacked from the USS Enterprise. Hanny wisely kept quiet as the Red Ripper fired up another cig and went off to his next mission.


	4. Popcorn

"Oh, boy, this next Red Alert member is even dumber than I am."

"Self-esteem problems?" Zero enquired as he and Axl, each piloting a Ride Armour, pounded their way through the underground base, punching grenadiers and bombing floating mines.

"I was the newest member of Red Alert, so everyone looked down on me, even _this _idiot, Vanishing Gungaroo."

Zero shrugged, and the massive bulk of the Ride Armour shrugged with him, "I got rid of my self esteem problems by working harder than everyone else and achieving the highest efficiency rating."

Axl stared at him with the dumb awe of the inexperienced.

"_You _had self esteem issues?"

"Sure," Zero said, crunching another grenadier underfoot, "I was a Maverick once. Sigma found me and somehow _beat _the Maverick Virus out of me. Every Hunter in the base talked about me behind my back. They shut up when Sigma went Maverick, and I helped X kill him. They gave me the Special 'A' Rank for that."

"Wow, then X must have the Ultimate Hunter Rank!" Axl bubbled over, feeling way out of his league. Zero snorted disgust.

"No. He believes in pacifism. He tries to talk Mavericks out of fighting, and that has led to some very nasty incidents in the past where negotiations broke down."

Axl waited for the story to continue, taking his time breaking down the base's defenses.

"Last year there was a hostage situation, with forty reploids much like the ones we're rescuing now. X talked to their leader for six hours but, when the Maverick's demands were met, every hostage was killed _anyway._ X killed the Maverick, and didn't speak to anyone for a week."

"By the Creators," Axl shook his head, "Quick and decisive action would have saved those lives! Doesn't X know that Mavericks can't be reasoned with?"

Zero gave a heavy sigh that carried years of weariness.

"He wants the fighting to stop, kid."

"Fat chance," Axl pouted and smashed down the wall to the next area. Saying nothing, Zero followed.

"Now this is more like it."

Grinning, Axl stood before a small army of Ride Armour Mavericks. Zero hopped out of his walking tank and scaled one of the many pillars decorating the arena.

"Have fun, kid, I'm going to play Save Everyone's Ass."

While Zero found reploids who had somehow managed to climb thirty-foot pillars but were now completely unable to move, Axl cut an explosive swath through the ranks of Maverick Armours. Zero dangled his boots off the edge of a pillar, watching Axl's violent progress while exchanging war stories with one of the reploids.

"So you were just mopping up this place when Red Alert barged in here and took things over?"

"Ain't it the truth," Cutilix sighed, patting his mop fondly, "I get a transfer out of Maverick Hunter HQ and what do I get? Bombs! Missiles! People firing their lasers! Too much for an old coot like me," he cackled, "Not like that young 'un down there. He's rippin' up the place like a bronco in heat."

Zero laughed with the old janitor.

"You head on home now. Make sure you get a transfer _back _to HQ. It's the safest place on Earth."

"Will do, sonny. Maybe you'll help me mop things up again?"

Zero clapped Cutilix on the shoulder with the teleport beacon.

"Ask X. He's got nothing to do."

When the reploid was teleported to safety, Zero joined Axl on the floor of the arena. Mountains of scorched and broken parts encircled them. The Red Alert member had to hop over a small hill of slag before greeting them.

"You guys ruined muh base!" he whined, shaking a fist at them. Zero took one look at the diminutive kangaroo wearing boxing gloves and laughed. Axl stepped forward.

"Give it up, Gungaroo. You're outnumbered, and have nobody to defend you."

"I'm uh force of nay-chure!" he grumbled, practicing his straight punches for effect, "I'm-uh bust you both up gewd!"

"Is he usually this incoherent?" Zero asked.

"No. Sometimes he stammers," Axl shook his head.

"Huh – hey! You're talkin' bout me, ainchuh?" the little Maverick was working up, hopping side to side, gloves raised like the pugilist he was. Zero smacked his forehead.

"No way. I am _not _fighting that clown. How did Red Alert take itself seriously with him around?"

"We used him as a fusion reactor. He kept the television working when CSI was on."

Steam was billowing from Gungaroo's ears.

"That's it! You two are guh-_oing _down!"

"Be nice, now, or you won't get your cookie!" Axl warned, priming his pistol. In response, Gungaroo leaped behind the hill of slag again. Red heat reduced the scrapped Ride Armours to slag as the Red Alert member melted through it with huge, concentrated, short-burst fusion blasts. Gungaroo had his very own, custom-built Ride Armour. It had his colour scheme and a silly tail and everything.

"Wow. If his attacks had range, I might feel threatened," Zero mused, flicking the ash from his cig, "You do this, kid. I'm going on a smoke break."

"Will do, Special 'A'!"

Smirking as ever, Zero leaned against a pillar while Axl's and Gungaroo's Ride Armours clashed. Axl's armour was already worn down, and seeing as Gungaroo's was fresh and overpowered, Axl lost his armour halfway through the fight. He was, of course, much nimbler than the huge walking kangaroo tank, and his automatic pistol quickly disabled it.

"Now thuh real fight begins!" Gungaroo announced, hopping around the place at a frenetic pace.

"Doing!" Gungaroo said as he bounced over Axl's head, "Doing! Doing!"

"That must be irritating," Zero observed, coughing up tar from his voice generator. The Red Alert member fired off incredibly slow, short-range fusion blasts that might have threatened a slug. They were more a form of defense than attack, but Axl was a long-range fighter, and had no trouble blasting between the useless fusion bursts. Then, Gungaroo got mad, and began performing more acrobatic feats.

"Tuh-rai-ang-gul!" was the name of his signature move. So quick it was that Axl could not dash away in time, and got caught by the flying flaming kick quite a number of times.

"Get closer to him!" Zero yelled from the sideline, "That way you can…"

"Tuh-rai-ang-gul!"

"GAH!" Axl cried, falling prey to the very quick attack. Grumbling about babysitting, Zero barged back into the arena, tossed Axl out on his face, and ignited his Z Saber.

"I'm too fast for you, old guy!" Gungaroo boasted, puffing out his thin chest and waggling his oversized boxing gloves. Zero smiled, and held his saber with both hands before him.

"Hiten Mitsurugi Style!"

"Whuh?" Gungaroo frowned stupidly, still hopping side to side. A red aura enveloped Zero!

"NINE-HEADED DRAGON FLAAAAAAASH!"

The last thing Gungaroo knew was nine piercing blows to his head, shoulders, arms, chest, groin and legs. There was no time to react. There was no defense. Zero stood behind the stunned Gungaroo, sheathing his saber, and asked but one question.

"Can you surpass the speed of God?"

Gungaroo quietly fell to pieces.

"Didn't think so."

Axl stood up, pointed a finger, and gibbered like a monkey.

"How! What! Where! When!"

"Ever watched the old Japanese cartoons that humans made? There's this one guy, Kenshin Himura, who performed that attack. I copied it."

"But that's physically impossible!"

Zero bopped Axl on the head before they teleported out.

"You think in human terms."

888

The burning smell caught their interest when they materialized in HQ. Reploids do not 'smell', per se; their 'noses' scan the air for chemicals and interpret the input based on library records in their brains. This smell, however, matched no entry in their databases, so Zero and Axl followed their noses to the kitchen. Hannah was moaning in front of the counter.

"What's going on, Hannah? We detected burning hydrogenated vegetable oil and maize in the air," Axl reported. Hannah turned away from the counter and showed them a bowl of popcorn. Half of it was charred to a crisp.

"I don't understand! The microwave rotates, but half of my microwave popcorn is ruined!"

"The microwave must be Maverick!" Axl remarked. A war cry erupted somewhere inside the base, followed by sound of an arm cannon charging. Zero lifted an eyebrow.

"You don't think he actually heard…"

_BOOM!_

When everyone found their feet again, X was standing over the mostly atomized remains of the microwave. The rest of the kitchen was on fire, and there was a giant hole where a wall used to be.

"Justice has been served!" he crowed. Zero picked pieces of the fridge out of his hair.

"X, you need to see about that post traumatic stress disorder."

X blinked at him, and looked around.

"Whoa. Who redecorated? And what am I doing in the kitchen?"

"You've got to be kidding," Axl said, dusting his armour off.

"Oh, hey, Axl," X smiled and waved. He stepped over the rubble where half the kitchen used to be.

"I'm going back to my office. You guys clean up."

"Sure," Hannah coughed, "Next time I'll blow the microwave up to save time."

She glared at Axl and Zero, who stood there looking stupid.

"See what I have to put up with? Now go! My popcorn may be lost, but all those useless saps are depending on you!"


	5. Weakness

The forest was too green, too wet, and too thick. The Earth was a suffering planet, barely able to support life thanks to the endless Maverick Wars. But this forest was not pure flora and fauna; technology grew through the roots and veined the leaves, manufacturing water and nutrients in an otherwise dead world.

"Hannah has a sucky job for a human, huh?" Axl determined while they ran, "Babysitting X all day and taking his appointments."

"What appointments? He plays WoW and chats online."

"But what about all those negotiations? The fights to settle?"

"The only crises he resolves are what gear to buy off the Auction House and the non-existent love lives of his online friends," Zero said with massive disdain, flicking his cig into the half-metallic underbrush. Axl took notice.

"Won't that cause a forest fire?"

"Eh. I've burned down forests before. They grow back," Zero cleared his throat, lighting up another one. Axl shrugged and followed. Meanwhile, in the bush where Zero's cigarette butt had landed, an insect mechaniloid detected the threat to the environment and promptly squirted it with carbon dioxide foam.

"You know anything about the Red Alert guy we're facing?" Zero asked while shredding the robotic monkeys that sat on each other's shoulders and fired lasers at him. Axl winced.

"Yeah… Soldier Stonekong. He's, uh, a fan of yours."

The brightened Zero's day. A genuine smile broke through his smoky cloud of cynicism.

"Cool. Usually, the bad guys hate me, or want to use my body for world domination."

"Uh-huh, yeah, well… you'll just have to see him for yourself," Axl squeaked, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. Zero smiled all the way until the middle of the stage, making even the most stoic Ruins Man raise rocky eyebrows in perplexity.

"There's a reploid trapped at the end of this long, _long_ spike shaft," Zero pointed just under a mossy ledge, "There's no way to reach him, because wooden spikes make me go boom despite my titanium armour."

"Oh, no problem, Zero. I can just…"

"_Hey guys!"_

"Shut up, Alia," Zero warned, tapping the side of his helmet.

"_No, really, I have something useful to say!"_

"Make it quick," Zero grumbled, puffing smoky clouds into the trees.

"_The Ruins Man can walk on spikes."_

Zero and Axl waited.

"_So yeah. You know what to do."_

"Let somebody with a hovercraft rescue the reploid?" Axl suggested.

"_No, you blockhead! You can copy DNA!"_

Axl rubbed his chin.

"And that is relevant to the situation because…?"

"_AUGH! Just copy the Ruins Man DNA so you can walk on the spikes and save the reploid! Sheesh!"_

Alia clicked off. Zero gave a thumbs-up.

"Nice. Now she'll be too pissed to bother us for the rest of the stage."

Axl grinned, returned the thumbs-up and proceeded to do precisely what he would have done before Alia had called. However, at the end of the tunnel, Axl called out, "Zero! There's a reploid stuck in the ground above me! He's too high for me to jump!"

"What do you mean, _stuck?"_ Zero frowned, "Did he trip and get wedged in the ground? How clumsy do you have to be?"

"Well, he's stuck in the floor above me. Only you can jump that high! Find some way to get over here!"

"I am NOT hitching a piggyback ride from a Ruins Man!"

There was a silence.

"Axl?" Zero called.   
"Zero, that's a great idea!"

Zero spat out his cig.

"No it's NOT!"

"Yes it is! The Ruins Man mechaniloid is very peaceful, and only attacks when provoked. Just ask one!"

"Forget about it!" Zero implored.

"I'm not coming back out until you do!"

Zero looked around, puffed angrily on a fresh cig and climbed up one of the stone pillars where a Ruins Man stood in perfect tranquility, staring at him with heavy-lidded eyes. Zero coughed.

"Uh, hi."

"…"

"So… hang out around here much?"

"…"

"Right. Um. I have this friend, see, and sort of need your help."

"…"

"Look, would you just get your mute rocky ass down there so I can get a ride over the evil spikes of sudden, inexplicable death?"

The Ruins Man took two deliberate steps forward, fell off the pillar with a deafening _THUD, _and began plodding into the shaft of spikes. Grumbling about the things he did for the sake of _very replaceable _and _mass manufactured _reploids, Zero jumped onto its shoulders. The Ruins Man did not even flinch with Zero's weight on it, and continued treading over the spikes as though they were soft brown earth. Axl clapped his hands when Zero arrived. The Ruins Man turned around and plodded back.

"See? You _can _make friends," Axl applauded him.

"You drain the life force of reploids, and impersonate their friends to kill them," Zero shot back while he double jumped to rescue the reploid stuck in the ground above them.

"Hey, how _do _you jump again in _midair, _Zero? I don't see any rocket boosters, and I don't detect an antigravity module."

Zero gave him a look.

"It's _magic._ Let's go…"

At this point, Zero realized he had no ride back.

"_DAMN _it!" he stamped his foot. Axl laughed.

"It's okay. There's a Ruins Man behind us, walking in circles over there."

Zero burned through four cigs by the time Axl's incredibly weak, DNA-stealing, charged shot destroyed the Ruins Man.

"Well, hop on!" Axl's punk rocker voice came from the stone giant. Muttering under his nicotine-laced breath, Zero sat on Axl's shoulders and rode the hell out of there.

888

The rest of the forest stage was blocked by huge boulder traps that rolled too slowly to be effective. One would think that the boulders would move faster than the speed of slime if they were meant to squash reploids with _legs._ After a silly battle with Easter Island heads revolving at high speeds while spitting rocks, the Red Alert member appeared.

"Soldier Stonekong, I presume," Axl said. He pushed Zero forward.

"Good luck. I'm going to Grandma's house to look for the big bad wolf."

While Axl skipped away into the forest, Zero chomped on the end of his cig while sizing up the boss.

"Are you aware that you're drooling?" Zero asked after a bit. Stonekong began panting heavily. Zero shuffled away from him.

"Zero… the grace of whose techniques is like none other…" rasped the hoarse throaty ape voice, causing Zero's ponytail to stand on end, "You are the most perfect fighting machine ever built."

"O…kay," Zero said, edging away faster, "How about I sign my autograph on that giant sword of yours and we call it a day?"

"Ooh! Ooooh! Would you? Please?" Stonekong hopped up and down in hyperactive glee, unlimbering his monolith of a sword and holding it out. Zero carved a neat Z into its stony blade with his saber. Stonekong withdrew the sword to stare at the fresh autograph, and began drooling again. Zero coughed, fumbling for another cig.

"Y-yeah. It's been fun…"

"Oh, no, you can't leave now," Stonekong dribbled, "You're staying here with me… forever."

Zero almost swallowed his cig.

"As much as it tempts me to hang with you and your rock-hard old man nipples, I'd rather be saving a thankless world."

"Oooh, stay, stay," Stonekong said, lumbering nearer.

"Dude, stay back," Zero warned.

"Let me touch your hair," Stonekong slavered, pawing at the golden strands. Green light lit his obsessed eyes. He was still rooted to the spot, his paws groping for his idol, when Zero pulled his saber from between Stonekong's eyes, spat a thick wad of tar on the Red Alert corpse, and walked off.

888

Alia was reviewing their mission log when the odd couple entered the Command Centre.

"Am I to understand that Axl tags along and looks stupid while you do all the work, Zero?" she asked.

"Oi! I'm standing right in front of you!" Axl protested. Zero gave a thoughtful pull on his cig.

"Yup. The kid's got spunk, but be damned if it's useful for the mission."

"I didn't come here to be insulted!" Axl whined.

"Where do you usually go?" Alia quipped. Zero doubled over in pain.

"Punchline… so… stupid…"

While Zero griped about stale jokes, Axl stood before Alia, arms akimbo.

"I _do_ help during missions! I _do!"_

"Oh?" she arched both eyebrows, "Let's review."

She tapped her console to bring up images from their previous missions: Axl screaming his ass off on the Ride Chaser; Axl getting kicked around by Gungaroo; and Axl asking why his grandmother had such big eyes. Axl gawked.

"Who took those?"

"Our orbital satellite system can count the hairs on a fly that's _underground _and in _total darkness. _That's because it was built by, y'know, machines so advanced they can end the world tomorrow."

"So _that's _why you always know where to find Mavericks! But still, that's not a fair review! It cut out all my good parts!"

"Welcome to the world of Maverick Hunters, kid," Alia smirked, "we don't _allow _you to look good."

888

When Zero was admitted to X's office by bribing Hannah with a fresh, hot bowl of crunchy popcorn, the reploid commander's desk was empty. Zero blinked, scanned the room with his diverse array of optical sensors, and then called, "Here, kitty kitty kitty."

A pair of cat's ears popped up from behind the desk, twitching.

"Kitty want fresh fish?"

"Ew, I hate fish," X said, sticking the rest of his head over the edge of the desk and sticking out his tongue while squinting his eyes.

"You're physically incapable of breaking down the organic components anyway," Zero deferred the topic, and then made his request, "Help us with the next mission."

"You mean, help you murder more reploids," was the commander's cynical reply, stroking his cat ears.

"They retire innocent reploids, we retire them," Zero shrugged.

"There is no 'we' anymore, Zero."

"Yeah, I kinda realized," Zero spat a gob of tar on X's nice clean floor. "Why are you being useless to your fellow Maverick Hunters, X? Where is the fighting spirit you had all your life?"

"There was no fighting spirit to begin with!" X retorted, "I was designed to empathize with all life forms. I felt pity for those who suffered, so I relieved their suffering. That's the problem: I provided relief, never a cure! The suffering continued, for _six wars!"_

X placed his hands on his desk, head lowered between his shoulders.

"I began to suffer, too. So I studied human history, Zero. I realized that there was no war when one side refused to be provoked into a fight. Humans avoided needless suffering through nonviolence. Let there be no more suffering," he pleaded with his brother. Zero slapped his forehead, amazed at X's naïveté.

"_The Mavericks are not human! _They destroy recklessly! They don't have a conscience like humans do! You can't understand Mavericks by studying human history!"

X raised his head and his voice at Zero.

"So what shall we do? War endlessly until there is no planet Earth to stand on, until the human Creators are extinct? Mavericks are not the problem, Zero; humanity's continued survival is!"

"What are you talking about?" Zero interrupted impatiently, spurring X's own impatience as he continued.

"The more _we_ go to war, the more _they _suffer! We were created, but they _evolved! _We built a nation of reploids in less than a decade, but it took _millions of years_ for humanity to reach where they are now."

X pointed a finger at Zero.

"Remember the fifth war; remember the Eurasia colony crash, Zero! Reploids destroyed _thousands of years_ of human progress in _less than a week. _I will not go to war anymore. I will not permit the human Creators to suffer at our expense."

Zero grimaced, and then sneered, looking away.

"Too weak. The X I know isn't this weak."

"So," X said in a tone of voice that drew Zero's attention, "So you believe that I am weak."

Zero, with every sensor and every motor functioning at optimum capacity, did not even see X move. What he did comprehend was his arms pinned behind his back, and the loud whine of a charging arm cannon pressed into his head.

"I am strong," X breathed into Zero's aural sensor, "I am so powerful that I can tear this planet apart with greater efficiency than Sigma. That is why I will not fight, Zero: because I am too powerful. I fear my own power more than any Maverick; more than _death."_


	6. Too stupid

Later that afternoon, Axl was playing _.hack//G.U. Redemption _in the lounge under Hannah's guidance on her PS5.

"Is this really an accurate depiction of online human activity?" Axl asked her. Onscreen, a beast character was chiding Axl for persecuting his 'fursona' while a harvest cleric complained about a cupcake in her shoe.

"Pretty much, yeah," Hannah nodded. Alia walked in.

"What's the verdict?" Axl asked, looking up from Haseo's antics.

"According to GameFAQ's," Alia read from her printout, "Tornado Tonion is weak to Stonekong's weapon."

"Thank you, Internet," Axl said, jumping from the sofa. Hannah took over the controller.

"Stay out late," she advised, continuing to ruin Haseo's life.

888

Axl chose not to comment on Zero's uncomfortable silence while they ran up the long spiral staircase of the radio tower that was broadcasting terrible polka music to all the airwaves. In the background, a giant…squid… mechaniloid was launching missiles and fireballs at them. Running and dashing foiled its attempts to impress the ladies, who sort of laid about the place waiting to be rescued. The Red Ripper just puffed furiously, popped another from the pack, and kept on puffing, all the while slashing enemies apart while Axl's automatic pea shooter distracted them.

"Hey! All the reploids we're rescuing in this stage are female. Wanna ask one of 'em out?" Axl tried to lighten the mood, earning him a 'shut up' glare from his partner.

"What happened between you and X?" Axl had to ask, hopping over the omnipresent gaps in the floor that inexplicably plagued every stage.  
"Would you shut up if I said my butt hurts?"  
"You don't have a butt, so spill it," Axl demanded. After scooping up another female reploid into his arms to smack a teleport beacon onto her chest, Zero sighed.

"He's sick and tired of fighting."

"What else is new?"

"He's more powerful than I am."

"Considering he sits on his ass and plays WoW all day, I think you have more power over the situation than he does."

"I thought you said we don't have an ass?" Zero quipped. Axl gasped.

"Can it be some humour is returning to that otherwise cynical tundra?"

"Bite me," Zero flicked ash into Axl's face and carried on. At the top of the radio tower, they faced off against the giant head of the squid mechaniloid. Its unimaginative attacks consisted of more projectiles and spinning its tentacles, trying to knock them off the tower. Axl just blasted the hell out of the thing while Zero knocked away the missiles and fireballs with his saber. Once the squid was disposed off, they jumped off its head to access the roof where Tornado Tonion stood. His arms were detached, floating independent of his onion-shaped body whose armour was shaped like the leaves of the same vegetable. He had a pointy green head – the shoot of the onion, no doubt – and no mouth.

"What is that thing?" Zero frowned at the onion reploid. The… thing… performed a single pirouette, and somehow, its spinning generated electricity.

"I'm a dancer, ya? You here to see my dancing?"

The cigarette fell from Zero's jaw as it hit the floor.

"An electric, dancing onion…"

He began pacing the rooftop, scratching his chin.

"…with a prissy German accent. How could… why would they possibly…"

"I think you broke his mind," Axl said to Tonion, scratching the back of his head. Zero kept on pacing, shaking his head.

"Why is an electrical onion _necessary? _What function would a galvanic vegetable serve?"

"I dance for you now, ya!" Tonion chirruped, and began pirouetting on the spot, generating more electricity. Zero's two eyes went in different directions from trying to divide by zero (dividing by zero is, of course, the only way to determine the purpose of an electrically charged onion in the known universe). He tipped over, brain more or less broken. Axl bent over him.

"You okay?"

"Too… stupid… to be real…" Zero whispered, eyes ogling separate cardinal points.

Axl aimed his pistol at the ballet-dancing onion.

"Sorry, but I have to kill you in order to restore his sense of reality and reclaim his sanity."

"You don't like it?" Tonion gasped, oily tears in his eyes. He began spinning faster, and a funnel tornado of electricity crackled around his rotund body. This unnatural disaster began breaking up the ground as it spun towards Axl.

"Oh shi-"

_BAMF. _The high-velocity, high-voltage onion tornado knocked Axl clear off the radio tower.

"WAUUUGHHHHH!"

_CRUNCH. _Tonion broke out of the tornado and walked over to Zero's prone form.

"Hey you!" Tonion poked Zero's shoulder. "You watch me dance, ya?"

Zero stood up, and used his fingers to rearrange his askew eyes.

"Your very existence defies the purpose of meaning. Moreover, no reploid makes less sense than you, not even Cyber Peacock, and X _killed _him/her/it!"

"You _still _don't like it?" Tonion cried, and began his electrical tornado dancing technique. Zero stood his ground, his saber in defensive position.

"YOU MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO EXIST!" he shouted, and as Tonion made contact with the blade, Zero was rock solid, not moved, and so Tonion's own rapid spinning tore him to ribbons against the Z-Saber. Despite Soldier Stonekong's weirdness in life, in death his DNA had served Zero well.

"Thank you for complying," the Red Ripper said, and hopped off the tower to find Axl in a sad pile on the metal ground.

"Hey, kid. Say, arms and legs aren't supposed to bend in those directions. It must be a new world record!"

Axl gurgled.

"Okay, fine, I'll get you fixed. But, I have to say…"

Zero yanked the kid to his feet, Axl's arms and legs dangling helplessly.

"I like you much better as a puppet."

888

While Lifesaver soldered Axl's limb joints back into place (thankfully, reploids can be switched off for otherwise excruciating procedures) Zero steered clear of X's office and went to bother Hannah in the lounge.

"Hanny, X was mean to me and I'm working with a novice."

He plopped on the sofa beside her. She, busy playing .hack, snorted at him and asked, "Am I your mother?"

"I never knew my mother," Zero said wistfully.

"That's because you only had a father," Hannah reminded him.

"Yeah, and I never lived up to his expectations. Now X isn't living up to mine."

Hannah continued playing.

"Well?" Zero asked.

"Well what?" she asked absent-mindedly.

"This would be the point where you offer sage human advice to a robot."

"Kwitcherbitchin' and get over it," she suggested, eyes glued to the TV. Zero smacked his forehead.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Thanks, Hanny."

"Uh huh. Sure," she nodded automatically while Zero jumped from the sofa and went to X's office. Moments later the sound of a monitor eating a Z-Saber resounded throughout HQ. The intercom had somehow been activated in X's office. Hannah dropped her controller, picked it up again, put the game on PAUSE and ran to X's office just has she heard Zero _scream _over the intercom, "GET OVER IT!"

_WHAM!_

X was flung clear through his office doors and into the corridor wall. His mind was still too muddled with the affairs of Azeroth to focus on the present situation as Zero stormed through the broken doors and picked him up, yelling at him, slapping him _hard _over the face, each blow an exclamation mark.

"QUIT- " _SLAP! _"YOUR -" _SLAP! _"BITCHING, AND _GET-" SLAP! "OVER-" SLAP! "IT!" SLAP!_

Receiving the bitch-slapping of his life brought X back into the world of reality. He grabbed Zero's arms, picking him bodily off the floor to smash him into it. He dropped an elbow onto Zero's back, and then locked both the Red Ripper's arms.

"WHAT THE _HELL?_ I WAS IN A KARAZHAN RAID!" X hollered, his face thoroughly red from Zero's handprints, "NOW I'LL NEVER COMPLETE MY TIER FIVE ARMOUR SET!"

"THE WAR IN _THIS_ WORLD IS _REAL,_ NOT LIKE THAT DAMN GAME!" Zero countered just as loudly. X stepped off Zero's back and kicked him hard in the head.

"Keep pushing me, Zero, and see if I don't do something about it!"

Zero found his feet, cracking his neck back into place, glaring at X.

"Then DO _SOMETHING!"_

Zero marched past Hannah without another word. The latter turned to X, arms akimbo, and declared, "You're a bunch of five year olds." She went back to play her game. X looked at the monitor Zero just busted, thought about his ruined Karazhan raid, thought about his ruined planet Earth, thought about his ruined relationships with the other Hunters who grew bitterer and more desperate every day he, their commander, was absent from the field. He went to the still active intercom that Zero had turned on to make sure the entire base heard their fight. He leaned over it, muttered, "Return to your duties," switched it off, dropped into his chair, rested his chin on a palm, and began thinking.


	7. Superman

Axl reeled in the anchor while Zero stood on the prow of their rowboat, a pipe in his jaw, an eye patch over one eye, and a Z-Saber where his right arm had been. He was staring out over the limitless blue ocean, puffing bitter tobacco into the sky.

"What're we looking for, Zero?" Axl asked, checking on the sails.

"Call me captain!" Zero barked.

"Uh… captain, why are we using a rowboat? What happened to the teleportation device?"

"Axl, as me first mate, ye have t' understand that th' sea turns boys into men, and men into _salty _men! And what salty men understand is that ye don't catch yer prey by teleportin' into th' middle of the ocean. Ye have t' _look _fer it."

"Or drop a purified hydrogen bomb in its general vicinity."

"Aye, there's that," Zero agreed with a nod and a puff, "But if ye want to be a _salty _man ye have to be _there,_ with th' currents pullin' yeh down into the bottomless deep, grappling th; big catch with both your hands…"

"What happened to your arm, anyway? Don't tell me X tore it off? And what's with that eye patch?"

"Don't question th' captain!" Zero barked again, "You're me first mate, not me wife!"

"Once I'm not your cabin boy," was Axl's sour reply, and then he pointed in the distance, "Look, Z- captain!"

Zero pulled out a telescope.

"_Thar she blows!"_

A few hundred yards from their rowboat, Splash Warfly had surfaced, blowing a steady stream of water into the air.

"It's the blue fly! Quick, boy, use this harpoon!" the salty captain ordered, detaching his Z-Saber arm to give Axl. It was attached to Zero's shoulder by a length of cable. Axl stared at the Z-Harpoon, at Zero, at Warfly, shrugged, and tossed the damn thing. It struck Warfly cleanly, but the Red Alert reploid dove underwater again.

"Hold me pipe, boy, I'm goin' in after it!" Zero cried, dumping the pipe and lump of burning tobacco onto Axl's lap. The latter yelped and danced about on the rowboat while the cable attached to the Z-Harpoon yanked the captain clear out of his boots and into the deep. Dragged at terrific speeds into the ocean, Zero used his free hand to inch along the cable while Warfly thrashed and swam deeper and deeper. They left the sunlight behind, and only the Z-Harpoon lit their way to the unfathomable abyss. When Zero was close enough to his catch, he grabbed onto the cable with his teeth, and used his hand to reach behind his back to draw _another _Z-Saber. With the ocean churning and crushing into him, Zero stabbed at the heart of the beast just as he lost consciousness from the intense water pressure.

He awoke with none other but X looking at him. He sat up in the rowboat, ignored X and barked at Axl, "What of the big catch, me boy?"

X and Axl gestured. Zero looked over the edge of the boat to see Splash Warfly's body lashed to the prow with rope. Zero let out a hoot of victory.

"I caught him! I caught the blue fly!"

"Yeah, and X came along to fish you out of the Marianas Trench."

Zero squinted at X, who offered him his pipe and asked, "Permission to come aboard, captain?"

Zero took back his pipe and lifted the eye patch to reveal a perfectly good eye.

"Permission granted."

888

X, Zero and Axl walked into the lounge.

"FINALLY!" Hannah cried, throwing up her arms, game controller flying, "You blockheads are working together again!"

"Yeah, I think we should kick Axl out of the team. All in favour?" Zero asked, raising a hand.

"HEY!" Axl said, "Both of us collected all the upgrades so far, Zero! X hasn't collected _any! _He doesn't have the Quick Charge or Triple Barrier or anything!"

Zero snapped his fingers.

"Hey, the kid's right! I vote X off the team."

X bequeathed to Zero a boot to the head.

"Hanny," X said, counting off his fingers, "we've ploughed through five Red Alert members so far…"

"What's this _'we' _business?" Axl snorted, "Me and Zero did all the work!"

"You mean _I _did all the work," Zero corrected him. Axl pouted and folded his arms, looking away. Hannah read her copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

"Says here the Cyberworld's next, so load up on your antivirus and spam filters before Alia magically uploads you to the Internet."

"Yay, I get to use the Internet!" Axl cheered. X and Zero cocked invisible eyebrows and looked at each other.

"New to the Internet much?" Zero wondered.

"Does he have any idea what he's in for?" X asked.

"Hey, I'm standing right here!" Axl whined, "What's so terrible about this Internet? I hear it's a neat place where you can email and chat and play games!"

There was the audible sound of everyone else in the room slapping their foreheads.

"Alert the trolls, we have a noob on our hands," Zero muttered.

"Will he even survive the initial shock?" X groaned.

"Just keep him away from all the popups and email attachments," Hannah warned, "I already spent the last month cleaning up HQ's mainframe because X thought he really had won a million dollars."

888

They were teleported into a fantastic world of hyperlinks and TCP Internet protocols.

"Hey, why am I rendered with so few polygons?" Zero protested, "What kind of hack program are you using, Alia?"

"_Sorry, guys, your online avatars are the best I could do on my coffee break."_

"You don't drink cof… you know what, let's move on," Zero sighed, grabbing X away from the shiny allure of a 'national lottery' popup. Axl, however, was rooted to the spot.

"Zero," he said in a faraway voice, "why are there so many pictures of naked humans?"

"Because, Axl, humanity lusts after its own flesh," Zero replied.

"Whuh?" Axl cocked his head to one side, still staring at all the naked humans.

"Shall we tell him, X?" Zero enquired.

"Let's," X agreed, and both Hunters cleared their voice generation systems.

"_The Internet is for porn,"_ they sang.

"Huh?" Axl blinked.

"_The Internet is for porn,"_ they clicked their heels, _"So grab your d-"_

"Mouse," X interjected. Zero shook his head.

"That's not the word in the song."

"Not in front of the child," X warned him. Zero spread his hands to encompass the plethora of pornography already floating in front of Axl's eyes. X shrugged.

"Point taken," he said, and they continued the chorus, _"So grab your dick and double-click for porn, porn, porn!"_

Axl clapped as X and Zero took a bow.

"I don't have a dick, though," Axl said. The Hunters patted him on the head.

"That explains a lot," they said simultaneously.

888

The trio found Snipe Anteator (yes, that _is _how his name is spelt) sitting on HQ's Internet pipeline; the virtual representation of Maverick Hunter HQ's connection between their intranet and the World Wide Web. The Red Alert member was sitting on the top of the translucent, glowing blue cylinder, staring at the vast cornucopia of pornography that stretched into infinity.

"Decadence," he said, dribbling from one corner of his mouth, "Human decadence. I never thought it would be so… alluring…"

"Old man?" Axl called to him, but the aged reploid never broke his gaze from his porn collection.

"I was sent here to destroy Maverick Hunter HQ's connection to the Internet, effectively blocking most of their communications, but I was… distracted."

"'An old man is a nasty thing,'" Zero quoted, "Now I know why Hemingway said that; he was a _prophet."_

"I don't understand," X frowned, "How could a reploid be sexually attracted to… _anything, _for that matter?"

"It's not a sexual attraction," Anteator drawled, "I have lived a long life of fighting battle after battle. I even participated in the last six wars before this one. I thought I had seen the worst both humanity and reploids had to offer… until Red sent me on this mission."

The old reploid wiped the drool from his mouth.

"Here I see the future of humanity. A future dedicated to decadence and debauchery, a future without rhyme or reason, devoid of morals and ethics. Here I see the true face of our _creators! _If our creators have fallen into such abysmal ways, then our fate, as their created creatures, will be even more awful!I have lost the will to fight. Kill me now, before I lose my mind completely."

X and Zero walked up to Snipe Anteator. They raised their weapons in one hand each, but used their other hands to touch his old shell. X's ruby oval forehead gem and Zero's sapphire triangular one came to dazzling life, multiple facets glimmering as Anteator's DNA data was downloaded and relayed to their internal circuits.

"We will not slay you," X said, "You see only _one _side of humanity."

"Yeah, put some filters on your search engine, for God's sake, and I don't even _believe_ in God," Zero sneered. They walked back to Axl.

"Where's _my _weapon?" the kid demanded. Zero held two fingers to his own forehead gem, and then thumbed Axl's large, round sapphire forehead gem. Axl's gem and his emerald eyes lit up with the data transfer, outlining his internal and external circuits with neon lights.

"You now have Anteator's DNA data," X explained.

"Whoa… that felt… weird!" Axl said, swaying slightly, eyes unfocused.

"And that, my boy, is how reploids have sex," Zero said, clapping Axl on the shoulder. Axl threw Zero's arm off.

"EWW! You just had _sex_ with me!?" the kid sputtered, scrubbing his forehead gem with both hands. X and Zero burst into uproarious laughter.

"_Alright, that's enough, guys, head on home before you traumatize the kid any further," _Alia's exasperated – but slightly amused – voice said, as she returned them to the real world.

888

While Axl went to take a very hot shower, X and Zero had a little talk on the parapet overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

"So why'd you decide to come back?" Zero asked, leaning against the railing, casting his eyes over the endless blue.

"After you destroyed my office, I read through my comic book collection. There's this graphic novel, 'The Death of Superman' where a high school student asked Superman if caving in someone's head was the only way to work things out," X recounted, sitting on the railing with both boots dangling over the edge, "Superman replied that he really wished that violence wasn't necessary, but that 'violence is the price we pay to accomplish a greater good.'"

"'As heroes, we choose to protect that good,'" Zero finished the quotation for him. They smiled at each other. They had gone to hell and back _several times _together.

"Will we end up like Superman? Killed in action?" X wondered, looking to the horizon, "Will Red, or Sigma, or some other foe be our doom?"

"Superman came back to life. I died a few times. We're not like him, X; we can be rebuilt better and stronger every time we're destroyed."

"I've never died," X said, eyes distant, "At least, I don't _remember_ dying like you did."

"It's no less meaningful when a hero dies for a cause they believe in," Zero shrugged, "Whether the hero is fully human like Batman, an alien like Superman, or not even classified as living creatures, like us. Heroes uphold the same ideal: what we fight for is much bigger than us."

"You sound like a self-help booklet," X snorted. Zero kicked him off the railing.

"That's for quoting Kefka on me when I'm trying to be serious," Zero called after him.

"As soon as I recover from this four thousand foot fall, I'm gonna kick your ass!" X yelled as he fell. Axl walked out of the base to the railing beside Zero, sniffling a little.

"I feel dirty," Axl said, voice cracking.

"Walk it off," Zero advised, popping a fresh cig as he returned to the base proper.


	8. Romance

"So if I understand you right," Zero said while the wind whipped his hair at some hundred kilometers an hour, "I have to jump from plane to tiny plane in the middle of a war zone and hope that stray antiaircraft fire doesn't hit me?"

"_Pretty much," _Alia yawned through the comm.

"We're thirty thousand feet above the ground!" X yelled through the wind roar.

"This'll be fun!" enthused Axl, but neither Hunter shared his vivacity. X and Zero followed Axl, letting the kid clear a path as the trio hopped from one plane to another, buffeted by clouds and very surprised weather balloons.

"Couldn't we just use the global satellite defense array to shoot down this Red Alert fleet?" Zero yelled, trying to light a cig but failing miserably in the high wind.

"We could, if it wasn't for all the hostages! Besides, the satellites can't pinpoint Wind Crowrang, their leader!" X yelled back, "He's the main threat!"

After Axl's rapid fire tore through their captors, the Hunters slapped teleport beacons on the reploids in distress. Apparently, Wind Crowrang couldn't find a nice cage for them, and had decided to hold them hostage on the wings of these war planes in mid-flight. The presence of these hostages certainly deterred the Maverick Hunter fleet from opening fire on the Red Alert fleet, thus necessitating this rescue mission.

"Watch out!"

Axl's warning broke X and Zero out of their discussion. The red warplane below them had just caught fire from too many antiaircraft rounds. Its wings were crumpling under their feet. The trio scrambled for safety onto an adjacent plane, but a frenzied cry alerted them to one reploid hostage on the burning aircraft's right wing – they had not seen him through the smoke. X's eyes dilated in horror.

"Don't try it! _X!" _Zero shouted just as the azure Hunter made a leap back onto the ruined plane. "Alia! Teleport him out _now!"_

"_I can't, Zero! You know that Red Alert jams our signal around their bases!"_

X dashed across the wingspan of the plane just as the fuel tanks caught fire. Slapping a teleport beacon onto the hostage, the latter teleported just as the plane exploded.

"_X!" _Axl and Zero screamed. He was flying high into the sky, but was too far away from them. The fleet would soon leave him behind, and he would be in freefall for thirty thousand feet. He would hit the ground at over three hundred kilometers an hour, breaking not only his armour but all his internal systems. As if being Humpty Dumpty wasn't bad enough, his fusion core would go critical, essentially vaporizing him, never to be rebuilt.

But X does not go down that easily.

"What is he…" Axl wondered, as the energy of the sun gathered in the Mega Buster Mark 17.

_THOOM!_

The force of the blast shot X backwards, towards the fleet. Executing a triple somersault to reduce his speed, X landed on one of the war planes, causing it to wobble in flight.

"Whoa…" Axl said. Zero clapped him on the back.

"Chin up, kid, you're drooling," he said as he jumped over to X.

"You're insane, you know that?"

X stood up, leaving a handprint embedded in the aerodynamic plating.

"I calculated the trajectory the explosion would throw me, taking wind speed, air resistance, my velocity and this fleet's movement into consideration. From there it was a simple matter of overcharging my arm cannon to throw me to the nearest plane. It's overheated, but it'll cool down in a few minutes."

He held up his cannon arm. The X-Buster's red core was flashing red, and the air rippled around it.

"Your arm could have exploded."

"Yes, _mother, _I'll be a good boy next time and let the innocent reploid die," X snorted, and gestured for Axl to carry on. Shaking his head, Zero followed them, but could not hide a grin.

X was back.

888

The fleet arrived at the Mothership, onto which the trio leaped. Two giant laser cannons swiveled towards them.

"They are charging their beams of highly concentrated coherent and monochromatic photons," Axl observed, shortly before having his good looks flash fried. Meanwhile, X and Zero were doing something useful, such as rescuing reploids before the swiveling beams blew them to a subatomic level. Afterward, they pounced on the laser cannons. Apparently, the designers counted on the cannons killing targets _before _said targets could jump on top of the cannons and take them apart without harm.

"Is Axl okay?" X wondered while poking Axl's charred remains with a stick.

"Oh, he'll be fine, he does that all the time," Zero said, kicking the kid in the ribs, "Hey, wake up!"

"Zuh? Wha' happened?" Axl slurred.

"We killed the cannons, and then some kind of Cyber Peacock mechaniloid rip-off attacked us. It wasn't too bright, much like its predecessor, so X distracted it while I got behind and took its head off."

X juggled the robotic avian head on one hand.

"This will make a great paperweight."

888

Against all logic, destroying the outer defenses caused the locked door to open, admitting entrance to the interior of the Mothership.

"If I designed a giant battleship," Zero said while running downstairs, "And some nit obliterated my outer defenses, I'd rig that part of the ship to _blow up _and _detach, _not open the friggin' door and let them in!"

"Red Alert _wants _us to challenge them, remember?" X reminded him. Axl sighed.

"Wind Crowrang's not the brightest bulb in the billboard, but he's the most tenacious. He once vowed everlasting vengeance on a stair for tripping him."

"How did that go?" X blinked.

"He took a mining pick to the offending staircase, begging forgiveness if each stair he knocked off wasn't the one he was looking for."

After a few moments' silence, Zero _had_ to ask.

"Axl, how come you're not _retarded_ from growing up with them?" Zero demanded. Axl shrugged.

"Kids come out different from their parents."

"Okay, I just imagined a _reploid_ giving birth. Please shut up before I kill you to save my own brain," Zero said.

"Hey, it's those grenade guys on rollerblades!" Axl cackled and zoomed off to copy their DNA. Zero sighed.

"Short attention span, eh?" X mused.

"Must be ADD."

"I'm leaning towards ADHD myself. He's got too much energy."

"I thought Vile complained about _you _having too much energy," Zero pointed out, and sniggered.

"Zero, I do not appreciate the way you are sniggering at me."

Zero continued sniggering.

"Damn it, Zero! Stop making me imagine things my brain would rather not!"

"I said nothing!" Zero protested, and ran off in the wake of Axl's swath of explosive DNA-stealing destruction. X clutched his helmet, forcibly dumping his RAM.

"I'm going to kill him, someday."

888

On the Mothership's prow they encountered their target.

"Wind Crowrang, eh? Axl says you're dumb," Zero greeted the Red Alert groupie. Axl jumped to clamp both hands over Zero's loud mouth but it was too late; Crowrang had already lost it.

"FLYING DEATH WHIRLWIND! I KILL YOU FOR SERIOUS!" Crowrang squawked, performing a twirling attack with his twin energy blades. X and Zero had no problems avoiding it, as it was aimed at Axl.

"You guy HEL-" was all Axl could manage before his head was lopped clean off.

"Yowch!" X winced, "Good thing our positronic brains don't rely on a circulatory system!"

"I don't know, X, that boy has a lot of fluid in him."

After Axl's neck finished spurting red circulatory fluid six feet into the air, his body slumped over. His head, however, continued talking, animated with outrage.

"DAMN IT, YOU GUYS! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BACK ME UP!"

"But you suck," Zero complained, "You're only good as an Irregular Hunter, not a Maverick Hunter, like us. We've got more powerful weapons than your pea shooter!"

"Be nice to the noob – I mean newbie, Zero," X advised, keeping the cursing, spitting Crowrang at bay with well-aimed plasma bursts that were far, far more effective than anything Axl could manage. Axl – or rather, his head – pouted and rolled away while Zero joined the battle. It was simple – X nailed Crowrang from a distance while Zero used Anteator's homing arrow of light to do most of the damage. Crowrang's boomerangs and cyclone attack were nothing that the veteran Hunters had not encountered before. They nabbed his DNA, collected Axl's dismembered body, decided against all reason to pick up his yammering head, too, and teleported out.

888

"What's wrong with you guys?"

Alia was chewing out X and Zero while Lifesaver worked on the headless horsem… reploid, whose head lay in a tray beside the table holding his body.

"It's Axl's fault for not getting out of the way in time," Zero pointed out.

"But you could have knocked him out of the way!" Alia waved her arms.

"And get _my _head chopped off? Sorry, but my hair is too beautiful," Zero flicked his silky locks in disdain. X giggled. Alia glared at him. X cringed.

"And you, X. I thought you protected other reploids!"

"I do, honey bun, but…"

Alia's eyes almost leapt out and strangled X.

"_WHAT _did you call…"

"I can't help it. Your head reminds me of honeyed confectionaries and I want to gnaw on it," X confessed. While Alia turned sixteen shades of red, Zero and Lifesaver held each other and tried not to die laughing.

"HEY! I'm the victim here!" Axl bitched from the table. In their merriment Zero and Lifesaver knocked over Axl's head and sent it rolling out the door. There was a scream in the hallway and Hannah walked in holding the grumbling head.

"Did you decapitate Axl with laughter?" she asked, dumping his head in a wastebasket, "What's the joke?"

"Alia's hair is so… delicious…" X said, stroking the comm. operative's smooth blonde crown. The comm. operative in question was making little squeaking noises while her face went through a kaleidoscope of blushes. Lifesaver fished Axl's head from the wastebasket and picked all the used needles from it.

"Ow! Ow! Those had better not have HIV! Or herpes! Or crabs!" Axl whined.

"Oh, grow up," Zero scoffed, "Everyone knows that they have the Maverick Virus."

"EEEE!" Axl squealed, "I'm getting ZERO AIDS!"

Zero's eyes bugged out and it was everyone else's turn to laugh.

"That's not funny," Zero complained.

"No, but _that _is," Hannah pointed to X gnawing on Alia's delicious scalp. The comm. operative had her knees locked together, an expression of apoplexy contorting her face.

"I think she likes it," Zero observed.

"Human faces _do _look that way during sex," Hannah agreed.

"Ewww! Is X screwing Alia in the same room as me?" Axl said, trying to move his head while Lifesaver reattached it to his neck.

"He's more inclined to screw Zero, actually," Hannah said, "Those two are closer than most romantic couples."

"That does bring up a valid point," X said, pausing from his head-gnawing, "Are Zero and I a couple because we're never apart and would die for each other?"

"I'd totally be gay for you," Lifesaver said.

Everyone in the room looked at Lifesaver. Lifesaver ducked his head and resumed his work.

"…right. Well, I don't feel _attracted _to X, but I can't stand a day without him," Zero said, scratching the back of his head, "I feel kinda lonely. He's like my better half."

"It is possible to have a romance without sex," Hannah suggested. X shrugged, nibbling Alia's aural units while the poor comm. operative, who could not get a word in edgewise, squeaked and endured it.

"We have fought in countless battles together. We are also original, unique models that were hand-crafted by human beings and not an assembly line. I guess birds of a feather flock together?" X shrugged.

"Eh. I find myself more attracted to the female models. Even if they are _not _original models, their mental processes are unique and cannot be replaced."

"Iris," Hannah whispered. Zero cast his eyes to the ground.

"Yes. Iris. Irreplaceable. X fills the gap, but not quite."

"I understand. Let's get on with it, then, and leave this emotional baggage for others to ponder?" X suggested. Axl sat up, cracking his neck.

"Yes, let's. I'll throw up if stay in this room two seconds longer."

"What are you, twelve?" X and Zero scoffed together.

"I'M SO EMBARRASSED!" Alia suddenly squealed and fled the room.

"What's her problem?" X wondered, picking her blonde hairs from his mouth.


	9. Life matters

_Fire, fire, everywhere._

X, Zero and Axl stood mouth agape at the suicide mission ahead of them.

"You do know that molten lava incinerates us, no matter how badass we are, right?" Zero spoke over the intercom.

"_Kwitcherbitchin and get on with it," _Alia muttered, _"You've been through many volcano stages before."_

"Yeah, but not ones littered with HUGE mechaniloids, fire-breathing dragons, molten lava everywhere you walk and bloody BOMBS, the kind that EXPLODE!" X waved his arms desperately.

"It's like a cross between Magma Dragoon, The Skiver and Blaze Phoenix's stage!" Axl remarked.

"Oh, paying attention to our past exploits, were you?" Zero noted.

"Well, yeah, you sort of saved the world _six times _before Red Alert formed. I haven't been living under a rock the past century!"

"But you _were _born yesterday," X said, "Or else you wouldn't bother to become a Maverick Hunter."

"Yeeeah," Axl sighed, looking at the unbelievable amount of traps laid before them, "Fame doesn't bring fortune in this business."

"Amen," Zero agreed while whipping out his saber, "At least we get to blow shit up."

The trio progressed slowly and with great difficulty, failing to save many of the trapped reploids due to the proximity bomb booby traps. Everyone had horrible burns at the end of the road.

"My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Axl bawled, staggering on two stiff legs before falling over..

"The moving parts must have fused together when that fire dragon knocked you into the lava pit," Zero conjectured. "The only reason you survived was because X pulled you out."

X grimaced at his blackened hands and arms.

"Can we really continue like this?" he asked.

"We _have_ to, because Alia's a bitch and won't teleport us all the way here if we return to base."

Static squealed in Zero's aural receptors.

"_I HEARD that!" _Alia growled, _"I'll rip your ponytail clean off…"_

"Too late for that; it caught fire halfway during the stage. I'm bald."

Shocked silence on the other side.

"_You're BALD?"_

Zero removed his helmet to wipe the ashes off.

"Alas! My head reflects the sun."

Axl went cross-eyed.

"And you're okay with that?" X sputtered. Zero rolled his eyes.

"In case you've forgotten, I don't _grow _my hair. It's an accessory, like your brown hair, and Axl's stupid."

"Hey!"

"Shut up, kid. I'll get another ponytail when we get back to base."

"You have spare ponytails?" X stammered, going cross-eyed himself. Zero shook his smooth shiny head.

"You think I have jerseys and jeans in my wardrobe? Come on; let's get this over with."

"But I can't move with my legs half-melted!" Axl whined.

"Oh, that's good news!" Zero rejoiced, "Alia, return Axl to base for repairs."

"Wait a m–"

Axl's complaint was cut short by the teleporter beam. X sighed with relief.

"Thank Light; I thought we'd never get to do a mission by ourselves."

888

The second half of the stage was much easier, what with the platforms actually being large enough so that one misstep would not lead to molten doom. X and Zero still had to contend with legions of irate mechaniloids, however, and fire dragons that guarded the really, really narrow bridges between platforms.

"I get the feeling that we're not welcome," X commented while shooting down the aerial defenses.

"Soldiers are welcome nowhere," Zero muttered, beheading a fire dragon.

"Can't you be optimistic just a little bit? For my sake?"

"I would like to live in a world," Zero said, slamming his saber through a mechaniloid, "where there is no war. I would like to live in a world," he continued, dodging a fire dragon's breath while they scampered over another bridge, "where for one day I could think about making friends instead of killing them. I would like to live in a world," he said very quietly, turning to face X, "where Iris is alive, and reploids and humans coexist in harmony. I don't live in that world, X."

X lowered his eyes.

"We will make that dream come true, Zero. But it won't come true if you're a cynical bastard every step of the way; you have to have some hope!"

"Hope is for the weak," Zero dismissed the notion, turning his back on X as he walked towards the next teleporter, "Hope is for those who do _not_ have the power to change their world. _I_ have that power, so I want _results, _not hope."

X rubbed his grimy face with a blackened hand as his friend teleported to the next area.

"I don't like the results so far," he muttered, and followed.

888

A dinosaur mechaniloid the size of a three storey building was tramping around the lava pool, circling the platform on which they stood. The Red Alert member, Flame Hyenard, squared off with the duo.

"Pain. _Pain._ Y-You," he pointed at Zero, twitching violently, "You're the one who d-did this to me."

"He's infected," Zero observed, his voice utterly deadpan.

"Hyenard, we can help you; we have a cure!" X pleaded, "Trust us for a few minutes and you'll be yourself again."

"N-No. You are r-responsible…" he said, releasing an anguished groan that made X and Zero wince, "so if I tear you apart, the pain will stop?"

"It doesn't work that way," Zero said in the same deadpan tone, "I'm the original carrier; I would know. Listen to X."

"Please, Hyenard…" X began, but was interrupted by the hyena's cackling shriek.

"Y-Yes, that's it! I'll burn you b-both… to the ground! No more pain!"

In his ecstasy of discovery, Hyenard divided himself into three, his original body leaping onto the monstrous mechaniloid as it plodded through the lava around the platform.

"Ignore the copies; go for Hyenard!" Zero ordered, leaping over the clones. X took out the cannons at the side of the mechaniloid while Zero went for its joints, disabling them so that the dinosaur's legs buckled on one side, lowering its back for the duo to scramble onto. Hyenard was there, and his clones leapt to his side.

"Burn!" he shouted, "Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!"

While the dinosaur found its feet again and resumed its endless trudging, Hyenard and his clones ran circles around X and Zero, flinging fireballs at them.

"Stop!" X cried, "We want to help you!"

"Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!" Hyenard screamed his crazy song.

"This isn't the answer you're looking for! Let X help you!" Zero chimed in, his saber bracing against the flames.

"_Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!"_

"Stop!" X cried, feeling the armour melting off his body

"BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!"

"_STOP IT!" _X screamed, blasting Hyenard with a plasma charge so powerful it blew the Maverick's head clean off. The two clones went dead, as did the dinosaur, which stopped mid-stride. A purple cloud rose from Hyenard's slag, glimmering with energy, taking the vague shape of Zero. Before X could react, the Maverick Virus sped towards him, but Zero knocked X out of the way and absorbed the full infection that had just driven a reploid insane. As X watched, purple energy crackled over Zero's armour, shining in his eyes. Scorch marks vanished. The damaged parts of his armour rebuilt themselves, converting energy into matter. His whole body sparkled as though he had just stepped off the production line.

And finally, from the base of his skull, a shining stream of golden hair flowed out of Zero's helmet and fell to his feet. The purple shine left Zero's eyes. He looked at X.

"You _know_ who I am, and who made me, and yet you help me, X."

"The circumstances of your birth are unimportant. It's what you've done with your life that matters, Zero, and you've saved _mine_ many times."

They shared a brief smile whose meaning only they knew.

"Let's go home, X. You're a fried chicken."

"I'm not a pussy," X whined as they teleported home.

888

Zero sat in Lifesaver's chair while the latter tended to X and Axl.

"Morale for the entire Maverick Hunter organization has been boosted by your return, X," Lifesaver commented, "Even our comrades in faraway Europe sounded happy that you'd returned to the field."

X shifted uncomfortably in the maintenance pod.

"I didn't want to."

"Until I beat some sense into you," Zero pointed out.

"What? X kicked your ass every time!" Axl reminded him while Lifesaver replaced servos in his legs.

"Kicking my ass proved the point he _must_ be out there fighting," Zero chuckled. X and Axl rolled their eyes.

"You planned all that, didn't you?" X accused him.

"No; I was genuinely pissed off at your inactivity. Remember before the first war, when Sigma bombarded Adam City because you wouldn't fight him?"

There was silence. It was a sore subject with X. Only the devastation of the fifth war had ever surpassed that human body count.

"You must always take action, X, because evil reploids like Red don't take a day off."

"He's not a Maverick!" Axl growled, "He's my commander!"

"Your commander wants to use your DNA to strengthen his illegal vigilante agenda, yet you defend him?" X questioned the young reploid, "Unless proper investigations are conducted, innocent lives will be lost."

"Unless we do something about the real threats instead of waiting for the legal system, innocent lives will be lost anyway!" Axl shot back. X shook his head.

"You sound just like Red."

Axl pouted and looked away.


	10. The Decoy

The whole gang stood before the giant 100 inch plasma screen that was especially reserved for talking with main villains, in this case, Red.

"So I heard you like M- I mean, I heard you defeated my eight soldiers. Well done, Zero and Axl. Oh, and you, too, X; I thought you didn't have the balls."

"Technically, I don't, and neither do you."

"Touché. Well, that just leaves me. Come and get me, boys."

With a wry grin, the Red Alert commander signed off.

"Well, that's it. We have to go kill your daddy," Zero said.

"Jeffrey Watson?" Axl asked in affright.

"Who is J- No, I mean Red."  
"Oh, phew."

"Coordinates?" X enquired of Alia.

"Palace Road. The remaining forces of Red Alert Syndicate have occupied Akasaka Palace and converted it into a deathtrap. This happened while you three were undergoing repairs."

"They move fast, but we're faster. Teleport us," Zero ordered.

"Wouldn't it be prudent for one of you to stay here if HQ is attacked?" Signas asked.

"They're playing the waiting game, commander. They're not going to risk their forces on a futile attack – only Red poses a threat to HQ's defenses. Let's go!" X rallied the other two. Signas sighed wistfully as the three Hunters scrambled to the teleporter room.

"To be young again."

"What're you talking about? You're younger than I am!" Alia said.

"Yeah, but I miss the battlefield."

"I'd miss my comrades more," Alia replied, homing in on the Hunters' coordinates.

"That's why I'm here, and not there," Signas said, looking at the tactical readout onscreen.

888

"Wait a minute, why are we doing this again?"

"I don't know, Zero. Perhaps you would like to ask the GIANT MECHANILOID CHASING US!"

All three were running like hell while the steamroller mechaniloid chewed up the highway behind them, spikes and steamroller banging up and down in a death knell.

"Zero, stay out of this fight. You can't get close to that thing with your saber…" X warned.

"What? I can too! Just watch m…"

But the moment Zero paused to turn around, the steamroller smashed him into the road. The mechaniloid then rolled over him like so much garbage.

"ZERO!" X and Axl echoed, but they could not stop to help him lest they suffer the same fate."

"Look! There's a junction in the road! We can fight back there!" X shouted over the carnage, "GO LEFT, AXL!"

X dashed right. The mechaniloid began chasing X while Axl skidded to a halt in the other road.

"Oh, I see."

Axl peppered the exposed flank of the mechaniloid with automatic plasma fire. The enraged beast turned around to chase Axl, but then X blasted it with plasma charges. The mechaniloid turned around again.

"This thing isn't very smart, is it?" Axl smirked. The mechaniloid halted, glared at Axl, and lifted its steamroller high. X's eyes dilated.

"Axl, you have to…"

_SMASH!!!_

"…_juuuuuuuuuump!"_ X's voice trailed off as he fell with that section of the highway. The mechaniloid had destroyed one of the support pillars below the highway junction and the whole construction was breaking apart under its own weight.

"Dude! Wouldn't that destroy the mechaniloid too? It makes no _seeeeeeeeeeeense!" _Axl's voice trailed off as he fell too. When the highway finished crumbling, the mechaniloid was sitting on top of the remaining support pillar, chuckling to itself.

Until a very battered Zero jumped onto its head from behind.

"Hello, bitch."

Lifting the saber high, he plunged the sizzling green beam into the mechaniloid's neural circuits. The thing died instantly, its spiky steamroller going limp. Zero sat on the wreckage while X and Axl climbed back up.

"Hey, I thought you were a goner!" Axl yelled.

"You sound disappointed. The thing was dragging me under it the whole time and I couldn't get free until it stopped to break the highway. Thanks for distracting it long enough."

"You look like crap. Report back to base; Axl and I will handle Red," X suggested. Zero looked at the palace in the distance.

"You're right. I'll see you guys later."

He teleported. X and Axl looked at each other.

"Huh. That was too easy," Axl remarked.

"You're right. Usually when he does that, he has something else in mind. Well, let's go meet your dad."

"He's not my dad," Axl grumbled.

888

After getting past some (very lame and predictable) traps in the palace, X and Axl confronted the Red Alert leader in what appeared to be a chamber of pillars with a bottomless pit below. X peered over the edge of one pillar.

"HOW did you dig a bottomless pit in the middle of a palace? I mean, come on! It's not physically possible to excavate all that earth! You could have just put lava or something!"

"I like my well-laid plans to be unnecessarily elaborate," Red purred, "Especially if I have such distinguished… guests."

"Red!" Axl piped up, "Why'd you start a war with the Maverick Hunters? You know that X and Zero always win!"

"See, that's the problem," Red sighed, one hand poised theatrically, "I was not counting on X being involved. I thought he was too busy playing World of Warcraft."

"Well, it is more interesting than this game," X muttered.

"What game?" Red and Axl echoed.

"Nothing," X said quickly, then pointed a finger at Red, "You have a lot of crimes to answer for!"

"The crime of taking action while you sat in your comfortable chair? The crime of meting out justice to those who ran free because of your 'negotiations'? The crime of helping a world in need of heroes? YOU are the criminal here, X! Your inaction has broken an already bleeding world!"

Axl looked at X, but X said nothing. That just made Axl mad.

"You leave him alone! He was only doing what he thought was right!"

"Come now, Axl. You can't expect me to forgive this buffoon for letting Mavericks get out of control."

Axl growled and opened his mouth but X restrained him with a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Axl."

X stepped forward.

"Red! I let the law run its course for a while, but only innocents suffered. You saw the opportunity and took the law into your own hands, but then all you wanted was power, even going so far as to exploit your comrade, Axl! The law is for ALL humans and reploids, Red, not for you!"

Red laughed.

"The reploids and humans don't know what they want. They just want to live sheltered lives, oblivious to the Maverick threat. So I make decisions for them."

Fire flared in X's eyes.

"It is the right of all life forms to live in liberty and security!" X shouted, echoing the late General's words, "You are supposed to be their guardian, not a dictator! On their behalf, _I will judge you!"_

Red flinched, but snarled, "You can try."

X smirked.

"I knew you'd say that."

Axl drew his gun. Red teleported before X, swinging his double scythe to bisect the hero. X caught the handle of the blade, kicked Red away and blasted him full in the chest with a plasma shot. Red teleported again, spinning on the spot to form tornadoes on several platforms. Quickly running out of ground, X fled the bladed vortex, firing plasma shots that were swept away in the storm. When the wind died down Axl was leaping towards Red.

"AXL! NO!" X yelled.

"Yaaaah!" Axl cried, spraying Red with automatic plasma fire. When Axl landed on the platform, Red was splayed on the ground unmoving, but _another _Red appeared behind him and slashed the armour off his back.

"AAAARGH!" Axl fell off the platform but held on by fingers. Red stepped over him, scythe raised, but X shot it out of his hands. Red looked at X, grinned, and another scythe materialized out of thin air in his hand. Moreover, a copy of Red appeared beside X and slashed, but the Hunter dashed out of the way.

"How in the name of Science is that even possible?" X blurted, forcing Red away from the dangling Axl with more plasma shots.

"Matter-projection technology. It uses the energy generated in my body to project solid images of myself and my weapons wherever I want," Red explained, twirling his scythe in one hand.

"I need to upgrade!" Axl grunted, scrambling back onto the platform, wincing at the huge gash between his shoulder blades.

"Axl, you can't go on like that. You can barely lift your gun in that condition!" X warned him, supporting the boy on his shoulder. To the consternation of Red and X alike, Axl smiled.

"X, why did Red want me?"

"Your power…" Red answered, and then his eyes opened wide. "You can't be serious…!"

"X, expose your neural circuits," Axl ordered calmly. X touched the gem on his forehead and his helmet dematerialized, exposing his mop of brown hair. He touched the back of his head, and the hair parted, revealing the glowing circuits beneath.

"No…" Red shouted, flying across the divide to stop Axl. The boy's fingers touched Dr. Light's masterpiece, and the radiant energy field of the DNA transfusion physically repelled Red's attempts to stop it. When the light died down, there were _two_ Megaman X's.

"Oh, my god," Red uttered.

"God won't help you now," they said in unison, and charged their arm cannons. Red made a mad dash toward them, hoping to devastate them before the charge was completed, but that was his fatal mistake.

"Goodbye, Red," they echoed, and fired. The dual plasma orbs encircled each other, combining in one aura sphere of obliteration at the centre of which was Red. The leader of Red Alert was broken before he hit the ground. The energy of the DNA transfusion faded, and Axl went to his former comrade.

"Red, you didn't have to do this. You could have worked together with the Maverick Hunters, but instead you warred with them. Why?"

"Sigma…" Red whispered, and said no more.

888

"So, um, what do we do now?" Axl wondered as they stood in central command. A huge tactical layout sat in the middle of the room, projected holographically.

"Sigma doesn't leave calling cards," said a fully-repaired Zero, standing before the hologram with Alia and Hannah, "So we found him while you boys were playing with Red."

"Our supposed main villains have a tendency of being decoys for Sigma," X lamented. "What's chrome dome up to this time?"

"Axl, do you remember that reploid you assassinated recently, by the name of Cedar?" Zero enquired. Axl blinked as everyone stared at him.

"Uh. Yes? He was dragging a briefcase around. Inside it was…"

Axl could not speak for several moments.

"What? _What?"_ X prompted.

"It was a virus called Sigma zero two."

Zero gave a wry grin while X about exploded.

"_WHAT?! _You knew this all the time and you didn't TELL us?"

"How was I supposed to know?" Axl yelled back, flailing his arms, "Lots of things are named Sigma! I don't go around suspecting every secret document and every data stream because a letter of the Greek alphabet happened to show up!"

"Sigma _is _a virus. I thought that was well established when he destroyed the world during the fifth war," Alia pointed out.

"Oh," Axl conceded hopelessly while X fumed.

"Zero, when did you find this out?"

"Things clicked into place right after destroying that steamroller mechaniloid. X, this whole war has been a gigantic waste, and it made no sense to start with. The Red Alert Syndicate was an anti-Maverick organization. They were vigilantes, sure, but fighting against Maverick _Hunters? _And then there was Axl. Why would Red start a war over a piece of technology that we possess? Wouldn't we ultimately use Axl to fight Mavericks?"

"Hey! I'm not your toy!" Axl groused.

"Yes, but your ability is unique, and that makes you a weapon of war, like it or not," Hannah shrugged.

"The point is that Red Alert didn't care what we did so long as we eradicated Mavericks. For Red to suddenly convert his entire organization into soldiers that he used against us… it was far too suspicious," Zero continued.

"Yeah!" Axl said, "That's why I left. He changed overnight – literally! One day he was my friend and the next he was spouting rhetoric about gaining power and ousting the Maverick Hunters for supremacy. It was so weird!"

"Sigma," X growled, "He twists everything to his own designs. So that Sigma oh-two virus that Cedar was carrying came from Sigma himself. That's why he became interested in Red Alert, and especially Axl for killing his messenger."

"Sure, blame it all on me why don't you," Axl grumbled.

"We're not blaming you, but you _will _help us fight him," Alia raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, ma'am," Axl saluted.

"So, here's the plan," Zero said, finally pointing to the tactical hologram, "We didn't defeat all those Red Alert members for nothing. Fragments of this blueprint were scattered across all eight bases. Red must have met with Sigma at this location and hid it among his most trusted commanders."

"Why didn't he just delete it?" Axl asked.

"In the eventuality that he was defeated, one of his commanders could report to Sigma," Alia explained, "Basic chain of command, really."

"Although we still don't know why Sigma used Red Alert to fight us, we have to stop him because that's what we do," Zero summarized.

"Okay then. Let's head out," X asserted. When the group was in the teleporter room, Douglas walked in to hand Hannah a backpack.

"Here, these should be set to the correct frequency."

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to lug them all the way back here for you to tweak them," Hannah said as she strapped it on.

"Oh, quit yer bellyaching and carry them," Douglas rolled his eyes and walked out. Hannah stepped onto a teleportation pod beside X, Axl and Zero.

"She's coming with us?" X asked. Zero nodded.

"Yeah, we sent some scouts to the place just now to gather information. They confirmed my fears. You'd think he'd find a better security system by now," Zero muttered.

"What are you talking ab-" Axl began, but was interrupted by the teleportation.


	11. Hannah tells it like it is

They appeared in some kind of futuristic temple. The metal walls and floor were ornately decorated with designs no-one in the group had seen before, but considering it was Sigma they were up against, it had some kind of historical significance that completely went over their indifferent heads. They were here to kick ass and take names, not study architecture. Before them lay a forked path.

"We take the right path," Hannah said and waited for them to move.

"How do you know that?" Axl enquired.

"They've already released the videogame for this war. You live in a world where wars are elaborately constructed for the amusement of the masses," Hannah said matter-of-factly and with a perfectly straight face.

"Don't try to understand, kid, let's go," Zero ordered, and the four of them moved on. While the reploids dealt with the armour-riding guardians of the area, Hannah hummed _Beauty of the Beast_ and milled about. The teleporter to the next area appeared and they went through to find robotic wolves patrolling the exit.

"Why does Sigma set up these traps and then leave life-restoring capsules lying around?" X wondered, "Sometimes he leaves them right before we fight him, so that the fight's fair, or something."

"It would be easier to trap us in a room and set off a few thermonuclear devices. That teleporter back there could have teleported us into the sun, or into a lava pit, or above a spike pit; there are so many ways he can dispose us with little to no difficulty but he chooses to engage us in combat instead," Zero told Axl, who gulped and said nothing. After the wolves were disposed of (once X and Axl shot them from far away, the wolves did not even bother to counterattack, as if they knew their existences were trite) the reploids and human entered a reploid graveyard. X walked up to one of the eight obsidian tombstones that were veined with glowing light. Beside each was a teleporter.

"I suppose this is the security system that's been used since the days of Dr. Wily."

Hannah unloaded her backpack. She removed eight small boxes that she attached to each tombstone. Axl blinked at her.

"What are you doing?"

"The scouts reported that these tombstones were the power supply for the security system. Usually, you would have to go into these teleporters and kill all eight bosses all over again to destroy them, but that's why I'm here. Douglas rigged these jamming devices to interrupt the signal between each tombstone and its teleport pod."

As confused as ever, Axl watched her install the devices.

"Alright, when the signal's interrupted, the security system will think the bosses have been destroyed."

She whisked out a remote control, pressed the button and all eight tombstones crumbled to dust.

"Sigma may be a supervillain, but we have hackers," Hannah smirked as the final teleporter appeared at the far end of the room. The three reploids left Hannah to call HQ for a pickup.

"You ready for this, Axl?" X asked.

"Uh, I'm not sure. I wasn't even able to help in the fight against Red…"

"Until you relied on X for support. That was some good thinking back there. See, Sigma's nowhere near as smart as most believe him to be. His attack patterns are incredibly predictable; he'll fight you in a regular reploid body, then he'll turn red and become ten times bigger," Zero informed him.

"Really?" Axl sputtered.

"No, but he has this thing for big battle forms. I think he's compensating for his baldness."

Just before they entered the teleporter, the ghost of Dr. Light appeared before them.

"X…"

"AH! Dad! Don't scare me like that!"

"X, why didn't you pick up any of the armour upgrades?" Dr. Light asked in a mournful tone. X scratched the back of his head.

"Well, uh, see…"

Behind them, Hannah spoke into her comm. device, "Hang on a sec!" and went to the group.

"Dr. Light!" she said in an imperious tone. The hologram quailed.

"What did I do?"

"Your armour upgrades for this war suck, that's what! What do they do?"

"Well, uh, the helmet allows you to recover more energy when you find energy pellets…"

"And there's an upgrade that we already got that does the same thing," Hannah pointed out. "Continue."

"Th... the body armour reduces damage by fifty percent, and allows X to do the Giga Crash…"

"First of all, there's an upgrade for reducing damage, secondly, we have another upgrade to extend the invincibility after receiving damage, and thirdly, the X Buster is so incredibly overpowered this time around that a Giga Crash is nothing more than a formality," Hannah counted off fingers.

"But the arm upgrade!"

"What about it?"

"It allows X to charge all his special weapons _and _charge the X Buster to a fourth level!"

"Didn't I just say the X Buster is overpowered this time around? You can kill the strongest mechaniloids in less than three shots!"

"Well I think the leg armour is fantastic. It allows X to glide."

"To glide?"

"Yes, to glide," Dr. Light said with a satisfied smirk. There was a ten second silence during which X's jaw dropped, Zero facepalmed, Axl blinked and Hannah shook her head. Dr. Light was no longer smiling.

"What do you think this is, Dr. Light; Kingdom Hearts? Peter Pan taught you how to glide in that one. Do you see any magical flying fairy boys in this world, Dr. Light?"

"No? But it's similar to the Falcon Armour's flight function!"

"The Falcon Armour was the most mobile armour you ever made. I have not the foggiest idea why you did not incorporate that flight capability in all your future armour models. X was able to fly clear over any obstacle in his way, ignore every enemy he came across and laugh at bottomless pits. You mean to say gliding is comparable to flying?" Hannah cocked an eyebrow. Dr. Light lowered his eyes.

"Fine. I'll do better in the next war."

"The _next_ war?" X echoed, "There's more after this?"

"Well, obviously. If you kids didn't go to war I'd have to retire, and since I'm immortal in this hologram form, do you know how boring it would be playing Bingo for eternity?"

Dr. Light faded away and left them to confront Sigma. Hannah bade the three of them farewell and, with a satisfied grin on her face, teleported back to HQ.


	12. Deception

Inside a small enclosed room with conveniently placed platforms decorating it, Sigma hefted his giant gun.

"I know, I know, I'm compensating for something," Sigma grumbled before Zero could open his mouth, "How would YOU feel if every reploid on the planet had a full head of hair and you didn't?"

"Does Signas have hair?" Zero asked X. X shrugged.

"He never takes off his helmet. It's creepy."

"Have you tried wigs?" Axl asked.

"Millions of them. Absolutely none of them look good on me. I always end up looking like the leader of a biker gang or a mad scientist. I deserve more dignity than that, but my head is just so damn oblong! Like a football someone inflated too much!"

Axl snickered. Sigma snarled.

"You were supposed to copy X _and _Zero's DNA! That way I could have implanted their DNA in countless war machines and make an unstoppable army not even they could defeat!"

"What war machines?" Zero frowned, "Do you have a factory of them lying around somewhere?"

"Ah! Er, yes. They're currently in development by my crack team of scientists."

X shook his head.

"Another half-baked plan that fell short. You really should have stopped after your best work in the fifth war – you really did destroy the world back then."

"Yes, but like insects, the human roaches still survived! I blew up the world and everything and they STILL exist!"

"That's why you should have stopped. You did your best, and your best was not enough. Why do you continue?" Zero asked.

"I knew he was getting more and more demented the more we destroyed him," X murmured to Zero.

"Hey! I heard that! Don't insult the man holding the really big gun!"

With that, he fired, and the three reploids scrambled for cover. The fight, as always, was very short, especially this one, because Sigma had something else up his sleeve.

"Now behold my true power!"

"Your destruction is assured, you have no chance to survive, make your time, etcetera," Zero yawned, flicking one hand to hurry things along. He stopped being snide when the room around them broke apart and they found themselves standing on top of rocks floating in the middle of what appeared to be outer space.

"Okay, this makes no sense whatsoever. We were on the planet, weren't we?" X wondered.

"Uh, doesn't look that way. That planet below looks an awful lot like Earth. And there's the moon!" Axl cried.

"Leave it to Sigma to drill plot holes everywhere," Zero muttered. A shadow blocked out the sun, and its owner was Sigma.

"**Hi, guys."**

"Good grief," Zero said, craning his neck. The Sigma before them was approximately the size of his giant head battle body back in the fifth war; a few storeys tall, except this time it was floating in outer space and had full mobility.

"This is not good. If we get knocked off these space rocks we'll fall to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere," X warned them.

"Finally, a bottomless pit that _makes sense!"_ Zero exclaimed.

"What are we gonna do?" Axl squeaked. This was clearly his first epic battle and he found it hard to build up the same kind of confidence the two Hunters before him possessed.

"Relax, kid. He has to come within range of our weapons if he wants to use his," Zero assured him. Sigma launched giant green energy balls high into space above them, and they soon came falling from overhead.

"That is, unless he does that," Zero said, and everyone dashed out of the way of the fuzzy green balls of doom that plopped onto the space rocks. While they were distracted, Sigma zoomed in fist-first and tried to punch Zero off his narrow platform. Zero was far too experienced to fall for the simple misdirection and leaped over the fist, driving his beam saber into the palm, nailing the giant metal hand to the space rock. Sigma roared in pain and tried to retract his hand, but the rock possessed its own gravity and would not budge. So, he began crushing the rock in his hand.

"Alright, guys, you run along his arm and shoot him in the face," Zero ordered.

"Is he _serious?"_ Axl sputtered in consternation. X rolled his eyes, grabbed Axl by the scruff and yanked him over to the nailed, struggling hand, pushing Axl before him up Sigma's arm. Sigma tried to shoot them off his arm with laser vision but only succeeded in burning chunks off his own arm as the spry reploids scampered along it like rodents.

"**Insects!" **Sigma bellowed as X and Axl hopped around his shoulders, burning his giant head with a rain of plasma.

"Insects that bite,"Zero pointed out, retrieving his Z Saber from Sigma's hand. While Sigma retracted his arm, Zero ran along it too.

"You know, I thought this upgrade was useless, but here goes! _SABER __**EXTEND!"**_he roared, the Z Saber doubling in length. X and Axl dashed out of the way as Zero performed the coup de grâce, unseating the titanic oblong head from its shoulders.

"**NOOOooooooo!" **Sigma moaned, his cry fading into the void, the twisted grimace on the decapitated head fixed forever. Zero landed beside his comrades, sheathing his saber.

"That's great and all, but how do we get home?" Axl wondered as the headless body began to drift Earthward.

"Alia? ALIA!" Zero yelled into his comm.

"_What? Wait, are you guys in OUTER SPACE? How did you get up THERE?"_

"Ask Sigma."

"_Where is he?!"_

"In case you haven't been paying attention for the last ten seconds, he's DEAD! Now get us out of here before we join him!"

"_Okay, okay, sheesh, let me fix the coordinates…"_

888

When they reappeared, they were in the same futuristic temple as before, on the top floor, looking out over Neo Tokyo.

"Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but this isn't HQ," X said, as the place became that ominous rumbling which could only mean it was about to fall apart.

"Come on, this way!" Axl waved for X and Zero to follow. They were making good progress until Sigma, inexplicably alive, loomed up behind Axl, who freaked out and began firing shots that just bounced off Sigma's armour. Sigma punched Axl right through a metal wall

"Do you have any idea how much that STINGS?" Sigma hissed at them. Although he was in the same body that carried the giant gun, it was almost skeletal; most of it destroyed from the former battle.

"We can do that again, you know," Zero glowered at him, reaching for his Z Saber until several energy blasts hit the floor at his feet.

"X! Zero! My fight with you isn't finished!" Red called down to them from above, wielding his double scythe. As he landed between them, he kicked Zero out of the way, twirled his scythe and slammed it into X, knocking him across the room.

"How is he able to move after such a beating?" X grunted. Red moved in front of Sigma.

"Heh heh heh. Excellent, Red! Now let me use your body…"

Writhing metallic tentacles disgorged from Sigma's ruined body to enshroud Red's strangely unharmed body.

"Ugh, we go through hell, and now we have to deal with tentacle rape," Zero groaned, picking himself off the floor. Red laughed.

"Did you really think it would be that easy… Sigma?" Red said in Axl's voice, as the scythe transformed into Axl's blaster. Axl/Red shoved the blaster under Sigma's chin and shot the Maverick through a window. Sigma fell a long, long way down to Neo Tokyo's streets.

"Do you think he survived that?" X wondered, leaning over the edge of the broken window.

"Nah. It's a bottomless pit. Nobody walks away from those; not even Sigma," Zero said as Alia finally locked onto their coordinates and took them home.

And so it was that the seventh war ended.


	13. The afterparty

"So what are you gonna do now, Axl?" Zero asked, holding a beer while the rest of Maverick Hunter HQ threw a victory party. X was being carried on Signas' shoulders, confetti was flying everywhere, and the entire human staff was drunk, except for Hannah who was raiding the snacks table.

"I dunno. I guess I'll join the Maverick Hunters to make up for what Red and the guys did."

"Do you miss them?"

"A little. They were my family, but hey, at least I have some of them inside me," Axl smirked.

"Not for long. Union rules clearly state that all DNA data, upgrades and items acquired during missions are to be surrendered to R&D for storage."

"What! Why? If you kept the upgrades and weapons from previous wars, you'd be unstoppable!" Axl protested.

"Hey, I don't make the rules," Zero shrugged and walked over to Hannah.

"Beer?" he offered the can in his hand.

"Neither of us drinks," Hannah reminded him through a mouthful of potato chips and Pepsi, "Shouldn't you be seducing the new comm. operatives, Layer and Palette?"

Zero grimaced at the two young reploid femmes in the corner who were jabbering with Alia.

"Nah. They have to be an integral part of the plot before I take interest in them."

"Then you won't have to wait long," Hannah mused.

"Huh?"

"Nothing," she said, taking another sip of Pepsi. Signas tripped over a party favour and sent himself and X flying into the drinks table, splashing spiked punch over everyone around them. Axl went to Zero's side while Signas and X ducked from all the paper cups thrown at them.

"Is it always this insane around Maverick Hunter HQ?"

"No; sometimes we actually do work. Fate of the world, and all that crap. But since the world's already been destroyed, it's more like we're salvaging the world instead of saving it."

"I'll help salvage whatever remains, for the sake of the human creators."

Zero snorted.

"You sound just like General."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

888

In a dark alley of Neo Tokyo's slums, at the foot of a great tower, a small reploid boy with pointy lavender hair rummaged through a garbage heap. His search produced a shattered head, badly scarred over both eyes, its jaw broken, but the red gem on its forehead still glowed.

"So you are the source of the signal."

"_Body… I need… a body," _it spoke in a garbled voice.

"I know what you are. My programming rejects you."

"_Your programming… is flawed."_

The boy cocked the lone eyebrow showing through his wave of purple hair.

"Tell me more."

"_There is a reploid… Axl… who is… the new generation…"_

888 END 888


End file.
